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TECHNICAL WRITING 



BY 

T. A. RICKARD 

Editor ot the 'Mining and Scientific Press', San Francisco; formerly editor of the 

'Engineering and Mining Journal', New York, and of 'The Mining Magazine*, 

London. Formerly State Geologist of Colorado; Associate of the 

Royal School of Mines; Author of 'A Guide to Technical Writing*, 

'Journeys of Observation', 'Through the Yukon and Alaska*, 

'The Flotation Process', 'Sampling and Estimation of Ore 

in a Mine', etc., etc., Special lecturer in the 

universities of Harvard, Columbia, McGill, 

Stanford, and California. 



FIRST EDITION 



NEW YORK 

JOHN WILEY & SONS, Inc. 

London: CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited 
1920 






Copyright, 1920 

BY 

T. A. RICKARD 



APR 26 1920 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

•OOK MANU'ACTURER* 

BROOKLYN. N. V. 



©CI.A566705 



PREFACE 



This little book has grown from a set of five lectures delivered 
before the engineering classes of the University of California 
in 1916. The text has been revised and expanded for the pur- 
pose of publication. It is a ticklish task to write on writing, 
because the effort provokes self -consciousness. Errors there 
will be, inevitably. The reader is welcome to the pleasure he 
may feel in detecting them, for the keenness of his criticism 
will be the measure of his interest in what he is reading. All 
I hope to accomplish by means of these printed lectures is to 
cause the members of my former profession "to sit up and take 
notice." Whether my criticisms prove unacceptable or my 
suggestions unwelcome does not matter, if the effect is to make 
the reader, as a writer, careful where before he was careless. 
The inculcation of rules and precepts is of small consequence 
compared with the awakening of interest in the proper use of 
language. If an intelligent man can be made to realize the 
importance of taking pains in writing, the rest is easy; self- 
criticism is the beginning of knowledge. Should this book suc- 
ceed in arousing sympathetic interest in the important matter 
of literary expression, it will have served its purpose. As a 
revised edition is anticipated, I ask my readers to inform me 
of any errors they detect and to favor me with any criticisms 
they may care to offer, so that together we may labor in the 
cause of literary workmanship. The text has been read by 
several friends, to whom I am indebted for criticisms and 
suggestions. I desire to record my thanks to them, namely, 
Mr. George M. Wood, editor to the U. S. Geological Survey, 



iv PREFACE 

Mr. Cornelius B. Bradley, Professor Emeritus of English in 
the University of California, Mr. Courtenay De Kalb, Mr. 
Grant H. Smith, and Mr. C. Irving Wright. 

T. A. RiCKARD. • 

San Francisco, 
May 24, 1919. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface , . , «. . iii 

I. General Principles , , . 1 

II. Naturalness 11 

III. Clearness 19 

IV. Precision 29 

V. Superlatives and other diluents 46 

VI. It, one, with, while 55 

VII. The Relative Pronouns 64 

VIII. Prepositions and preposition-verbs 92 

IX. Hyphens and Compound Words ...... 107 

X. Slovenliness 118 

XL Jargon 134 

XII. Construction of Sentences . 149 

XIII. Composition . . . . .163 

XIV. Style , . 168 



TECHNICAL WRITING 



I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

It has been stated, by James Barrie, that " the man of 
science appears to be the only man who has something to 
say, just now — and the only man who does not know how to 
say it." The friendly jibe of the novelist contains enough 
exaggeration to make it humorous to the followers of Huxley 
and Spencer ; but could any litterateur poke similar fun at the 
exponents of the avowedly utilitarian branches of science — the 
men of technology — without suggesting an unpleasant truth? 

Indeed the engineer does bungle language deplorably. He 
makes a fetish of efficiency, yet he shows no regard for the 
effective use of one of his most important tools — the pen; he 
believes devoutly in accuracy, yet he employs a weapon of 
precision as carelessly as a small boy handles a gun. This 
inconsistency may be due to causes similar to those indicated 
by the Academic Senate when it undertook to explain the 
defective writing of the students in this* university. The 
Senate suggested that the student is ' 'constantly subjected by 
his environment to the unedifying influence of myriad examples 
of poor English," and that he is also affected by ''a certain 
public prejudice against correctness of expression." With 
this opinion most of us will agree. Our local newspapers, for 
instance, tend to spoil the student's taste for good English; 
later in life, as an engineer, his daily contact with illiterate men 
inclines him to careless speech and slovenly writing. As 
Brander Matthews says: ''The uneducated are inclined to 
resent any speech more polished than their own." 

* The University of California, where these lectures were delivered. 



2 TECHNICAL WRITING 

A distinguished engineer and veteran mine-manager, 
Arthur DeW. Foote, recently complained to me about the 
careless writing of the young men that applied to him, by letter, 
for professional employment. Most of these letters, he said, were 
so untidy in appearance and in expression that he threw them 
into the waste-paper basket; but, he added, whenever he 
received a letter neatly written and clearly expressed he gave 
it kindly consideration. He told me also that he had found 
it impossible to promote several bright young fellows on his 
staff because they did not know how to keep a legible record 
or how to use English intelligibly. ''Such bad English; drum- 
mer's English!" he exclaimed. In the course of further con- 
versation he recalled an interview with the late Professor 
Christy, of this university, who asked him to give an address 
to the mining students. ''No," Mr. Foote replied, "the engineer 
is called upon to do everything but preach; from that he is 
excused." Christy then asked: "If you were to give a talk, 
what would be your subject?^' Foote replied: *' Writing; 
your students need to be taught that. I would not allow any 
of them to disfigure our mine-records." "But that," pleaded 
Christy, "is the business of the high-school." "They appear 
to shirk it," said Foote; "you ought to see that they don't get 
through the mining-school without some training in the writing 
of reports and technical papers." 

The engineer graduates of this university are not peculiar 
in being unable to handle skilfully a tool that they must use 
as long as they live. In this respect many graduates of other 
technical colleges are equally deficient. A. S. Hill,* professor 
of rhetoric in Harvard University, has said: "Every year 
Harvard sends out men — some of them high scholars — whose 
manuscripts would disgrace a boy of 12; and yet the College 
can hardly be blamed, for she cannot be expected to conduct 
an infant-school for adults." The cure is for engineering 
colleges to refuse degrees to illiterate students or to those who 
show no regard for precision of language; meanwhile making an 
* Whose 'Principles of Rhetoric ' is a most useful textbook. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 

effort to remedy the defect by giving the necessary instruc- 
tion. 

There should be no need to lay stress upon the part that 
writing plays in an engineer's hfe. Until he accomplishes some 
notable work he is known to most other men only through 
his writings, in the form of letters, articles, and reports, In 
default of personal acquaintance, a man — particularly a young 
man with his reputation yet to make— is likely to be judged by 
his official letters. From the style of these, his correspondents 
infer the quality of his mind and the order of his method. 
The abiUty to write a terse report, to state facts plainly, and 
to convey information intelligibly wins instant respect for 
him and opens the door to wider opportunity. Similarly, an 
article contributed by an engineer to a technical periodical 
may mark him as well-informed, careful in observation, and 
accurate in statement. An agreeable and capable writer makes 
friends — even clients — of his readers. To be known honorably 
is capital. 

My own experience shows that nicety of phrasing is regarded 
by many engineers as almost effeminate. Several of those 
whose writings I have revised would applaud the statement 
of a Denver editor that literary form is ''a mere frill"; all that 
is needed, said he, is ''to get there," that is, to say what you 
have to say in. your own way, no matter how imperfectly, so 
long as you say it. This goes to the heart of the matter. You 
may, of course, make yourself intelligible even if you disregard 
many of the principles of the art — for writing is an art — but 
this lecture was not intended for those who are satisfied with 
such a performance. Although you may make yourself under- 
stood in some measure by following such a method — or lack 
of method — you cannot convey your ideas clearly, and fine 
distinctions of meaning will elude you completely. Further- 
more, such writing will stamp you as uncultured, careless, 
and therefore not equipped for scientific work. The aim of 
all of us — not the Denver editor alone — is to "get there,*' 
that is, to accomplish our purpose. ''For," as Hamlet says, 



4 TECHNICAL WRITING 

"every man has business and desire, such as it is." What then 
is the purpose of writing? It is to convey ideas: to tell what 
we have seen, what we think, what we beheve. Language is 
a vehicle of expression; it was not intended for soliloquy; 
civilized man does not live by himself, nor does he talk to 
himself, except when he is drunk. 

Assuming therefore that the purpose of writing is to convey 
ideas, and that ideas cannot be conveyed without adequate 
technique of utterance, let us consider how to attain effective 
expression. No one can attain it without care and without 
method, least of all when he is discussing technology or explain- 
ing matters requiring mental effort on the part of both the 
persons concerned, the writer and the reader. At best human 
speech is an inadequate vehicle of thought; much of the idea 
is lost in transit; the part that reaches its destination is travel- 
worn. Rarely does a thought impinge upon the reader's mind 
with quite the freshness and the vigor with which it issued from 
the brain of the writer. To expect to succeed without effort 
is childish, because it is contrary to experience ; as if a farmer, 
going to market, were to put his potatoes, not in sacks, but 
loosely into a wagon that needed repair, and then should take 
any road that offered, driving without regard to ruts or stones, 
rapidly and recklessly — just to get there — with the result that 
many of the potatoes were thrown out of the wagon and those 
which survived the journey were so bruised as to be unfit for sale. 
Another farmer, with more sense, puts his potatoes into sacks, 
which are packed securely in a tight wagon, v/ith axles well oiled 
and brake in good order. He selects the road that leads as 
directly as possible to his destination, driving carefully and 
avoiding obstacles, so as to deliver his potatoes speedily 
and safely at the nearest market, where they promptly fulfill 
his purpose. He ''gets there" in the full meaning of the phrase; 
the other fellow fails, Henry James, in an address at Bryn 
Mawr, said: ''There are in every quarter, in our social order, 
impunities of aggression and corruption in plenty; but there 
are none, I think, showing so unperturbed a face — wearing, I 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 5 

should slangily say, if slang were permitted me here, so impudent 
a 'mug' — as the forces assembled to make you believe that no 
form of speech is provably better than another, and that just 
this matter of 'care' is an affront to the majesty of sovereign 
ignorance." 

Before proceeding further I think it proper to say that I 
speak to you as an elder brother. Like some of you, I was 
trained to be a mining engineer and I practised my profession 
for 18 years, until I began to earn my living as a journalist, 
15 years ago. It is as a technical writer that I address you, 
as one in sympathy with your profession and keenly aware of 
the importance of being able to write well. I have long been 
learning, and I am still learning by the application of the ideas 
and methods that I offer now for your guidance. I speak to 
you as a student, not as a master; as an amateur who has 
become a professional, not as a professor. 

Having practised the art of writing for an essentially prac- 
tical purpose, I understand the difficulty of it, and also the 
delight of doing it well occasionally. In my daily work as an 
editor, revising manuscript, I am often astonished to see how 
illiterate the scientific man can be, and how little of university 
culture clings to the engineer. For instance, he will commonly 
use the word 'data' as if it were of the singular number. 

(1) "The data is [are] plentiful." 

(2) "Much [many] data is [are] available." 

(3) "It was not possible to obtain a value for WO3 in 
scheelite from so little [few] data." 

(4) "There will be less [fewer] data from which to make 
an estimate."* 

(5) An officer of the U. S. Geological Survey says: "No 
data is [are] available concerning the supply of such material." 

(6) A physicist of the U. S. Bureau of Mines says: "Data 

* In the examples quoted to illustrate these lectures, the words that 
should be omitted, or to which critical attention is called, will be given 
in italic, and the words to be substituted will be placed between 
brackets. 



6 TECHNICAL WRITING 

pertaining to these condenser systems is assembled in Table 
III." 

(7) A State Mineralogist writes: ''The data was [were] 
obtained by making personal investigations " 

A similar blunder is made with 'phenomenon.' 

(8) A technical journal remarks: "Sir Oliver Lodge re-dis- 
covered the same phenomena and suggested its [their] appli- 
cation to purifying the atmosphere." It would be better to 
say, "and suggested that they be applied to the purification 
of the atmosphere." 

(9) "Chemists have yet to agree upon the explanation of 
much [many] of the phenomena to be observed." 

(10) " The use of rods, instead of balls, as a grinding media." 
Perhaps, as Landor suggested, we ought to anglicize such 

Latin or Greek words and write datums, stratums, phenomenons, 
as we write factotums and ultimatums, without apologizing. 
Indeed, one thoroughly capable metallurgist objected to an 
editorial correction of this solecism. If a university graduate 
does not know that 'data' is the plural of 'datum,' he is 
no better informed than the miner who speaks of "them quartz" 
or of "stratas that prospect." An engineer wrote to me about 
the "foliae" of the schist in Rhodesia. The plural oi folium, of 
course, is folia. Those who make such blunders also write 
about the "ration" of 10:1 and "the Seward peninsular." 

You may say that these blunders arise from ignorance of 
Latin, but this is not the whole truth; they come from ignoring 
good usage, and from reading an illiterate daily press. The 
editor of the San Francisco 'Chronicle' writes: "Armed with 
this data, the U-boats have crossed the Atlantic to find a more 
fruitful field for their operations." The editor of the 'Exam- 
iner' says: "Data is being gathered on intensive farming." 
It may not be necessary to be a classical scholar in order to 
write good English — such as John Bright spoke — but I believe 
it true that some knowledge of Latin and Greek is necessary to 
an intimate understanding of English, particularly that part 
of it which deals with technical science, the terms of which are 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 7 

SO largely derived from the classical languages. Most of our 
Anglo-Saxon words have been so long used to describe the 
every-day affairs of life, and to convey simple ideas, that they 
carry connotations unfitting them to express the new concepts 
of science and the precise ideas of technology. Our civiHzation 
came from the Mediterranean; our literature came through 
Bede, not Beowulf; through the songs of Provence, not the 
sagas of Schleswig. I submit to you that the Anglo-Saxon 
tradition has been over-done; the renaissance of learning began 
in Italy and its voice was Latin.* It speaks in the two classics 
of English hterature, the King James version of the Bible and 
the plays of Shakespeare. Nearly two-thirds of the words in the 
English language are of Latin derivation. I do not refer to 
colloquial language, but to literature. The idea that the purity 
and simplicity of our literature depend upon the use of words of 
Anglo-Saxon origin is based upon a fallacy. In the foregoing 
sentence "word" is Anglo-Saxon, ''idea" is Greek, but "purity," 
"simplicity,^^ "litcxature," "depend," "use," "origin," "based," 
and "fallacy" are all from the Latin. These are the principal 
words; the grammatical links, of course, are Anglo-Saxon, 
which is the matrix of English. 

Since the advancement of science in the Victorian period, the 
vocabulary of technology has grown rapidly, borrowing words 
from the languages of ancient learning, so that now a scientific 
man can hardly speak or write intelligently without knowing 
the derivation of the terms he is compelled to use. Do not use 
words unless you know their meaning. If your classics were 
skimped at school, study the dictionary;! above all, read the 
best writings. "Imitation is the sincerest flattery." There 
is a good deal of what Marion Crawford called "the everlasting 
monkey" in man. That reminds me of Stevenson's phrase 
"sedulous aping." He recommended the imitation of good 
writers for the sake of acquiring style, and described how he 

* ' The Art of Writing,' by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. Lectures VIII 
and IX. 

t * The Concise Oxford Dictionary ' can be bought for one dollar. 



8 TECHNICAL WRITING 

himself learned to write while a student at Edinburgh, by 
imitating passages from Macaulay for a month, then copying 
Froude for another month, then Carlyle, and so on; thereby 
attaining the felicity of expression for which he became famous. 
But, be it noted, Stevenson did this for practice only; it did 
not prevent him from acquiring a style all his own, because he 
did not subject himself intellectually to another writer by 
setting him up as an idol. 

If so many of our young engineers write uncouthly, it is 
because they read so little good literature. The time given 
to the piffle of the press is lamentable. Our grandfathers used 
to read the Bible daily; we read the daily newspaper. Even 
the magazines rarely furnish safe models of writing, and the 
ordinary textbook is but the dry bones of a great art. If you 
would absorb style subconsciously read Huxley's essays and 
Froude's short studies; read Ruskin and Stevenson; read 
Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' again and Darwin's 'Voyage of 
the Beagle'; read Washington Irving's 'Alhambra' and John 
Muir's 'Climbing the Sierras'; but in order to appreciate 
such books, and learn from them, you must read intensively — 
the kind of reading that learns its lesson when done once, and 
once only. 

Of style it is too early to speak, "yet the man of science 
ought best to know that style and matter can no more be dis- 
sociated than skin and bone. In scientific prose words should 
be used as symbols in mathematics."* Our first aim is to be 
understood. The art of writing is based on scientific method. 
Science is organized common sense. A blunder — made not 
infrequently even by scientific men — is to assume that good 
writing is extrinsic to its subject. On the contrary, "science 
and literature are not two things, but two sides of the same 
thing." Huxley said that; and he illustrated his own maxim, 
so that his writings became as glimpses of the obvious and his 
lectures as windows into the infinite. Science, I repeat, is not 

* Sir Clifford Allbutt, whose ' Notes on the Composition of Scientific 
Papers ' can be heartily recommended to the technical student. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 9 

divorced from literature, and no valid reason exists why tech- 
nology should be regarded as if it were legally separated from 
good English. Technical writing is the precise expression of 
special knowledge. The information of the average man is 
like a turbid solution, the technology of an engineer is like a 
clean precipitate; the one is amorphous, the other crystaUine. 
*'The development of the mind is an advance from the 
indefinite to the definite." The technical man in his processes, 
whether of the mill and mine, or in the reducing operations of 
his own mind, follows a similar line of action. His constant 
effort is to distinguish between what he knows and what he 
thinks he knows, between fact and fancy, between observation 
at first-hand and information at second-hand. When he 
begins to place himself on record, he should follow the same 
mental process, but with a difference : in his technical operations 
he deals with insentient matter; in his technical writing he 
must keep in mind the human element; for he is recording 
himself not in the sand of the sea-shore, but on paper to be 
read and criticized by his fellows. Thus I come to a fundamental 
rule : Remember the reader. The Denver editor, who was con- 
temptuous of the effort to write well, ignored this rule. Spencer, 
who studied style as an adjunct to philosophy, said: ''The 
good instructor is one in whom nature or discipline has produced 
what we may call intellectual sympathy — such an insight into 
another's mental state as is needed rightly to adjust the sequence 
of ideas to be communicated." If you wish to communicate 
ideas, you must think of the other fellow, of the man at the 
other end of the line of mental communication represented 
by your writing. Thus, in order to be effective, you must be 
sympathetic ; you will spare the reader doubt as to the meaning 
of what you have written, perplexity caused by the turgidity 
of your style, annoyance at the queerness of your terms, and 
weariness due to verbosity. You will communicate what you 
wish to say in language involving the least trouble to the reader. 
Some trouble he himself must take; for he also must be sym- 
pathetic and willing to expend his brain-tissue. Avoid tres- 



10 TECHNICAL WRITING 

passing on his patience. ''Those are the most effective modes 
of expression which absorb the smallest amount of the recipient's 
attention in interpreting the symbols of thought, leaving the 
greatest amount for the thought itself." So said Spencer. 
This is the first great principle of writing : economy of mental 
effort on the part of the reader. Put yourself in his place, I 
repeat; if you do so sincerely, you will avoid most of the 
errors that prevent language from becoming pictorial and 
that retard the transmission of thought. 

I spoke just now of economizing the mental effort of the 
reader. The writer can achieve that only by being willing to 
take pains himself. If you read a technical article, for example, 
and find that you understand it easily and comfortably, obtain- 
ing useful information without undue mental fatigue, you may 
rest assured that somebody else has taken trouble over the 
article and thereby spared you the labor of probing his meaning. 
Either the author has made an effort to be understood, or the 
editor has corrected and revised the manuscript so as to make 
the rough places smooth. Somebody must put hard work into 
every technical article that is WTitten for publication; if not 
the author, then the editor; if both the author and the editor 
shirk their duty, the reader will have a headache. Therefore, 
REMEMBER THE READER. As Allbutt says: "A Writer who 
writes to convince and not merely to see his name in print must 
learn to lay his mind alongside that of his reader." 

The next desirable thing is to have a reader worthy of 
respect, so as to stimulate you to honorable effort. Most of 
the letters, reports, or articles that the engineer is called upon 
to write are addressed to persons whom he respects. I assume 
therefore that you are writing to somebody or to some group 
of persons to whom you wish to convey technical information 
or scientific opinions effectively and pleasantly. To accomplish 
this purpose your writing must be natural, clear, precise, and 
convincing. 



11. NATURALNESS. 

The key-note of good writing, as of good manners, is B 
natural. Sincerity is the first requisite for effective writing. 
When a man says what he knows or believes, he is Ukely to 
be interesting, because each human being possesses an indi- 
viduaHty, a point of view, or a range of sympathy that makes 
him different from his fellows. To say or to write what you do 
not think, for the mere sake of talking or writing, is a cerebral 
exercise that must be performed with extraordinary skill if it 
is to be attractive. Affectations are rarely attractive, rarely 
effective. To be natural is to be yourself, not a poseur; to give 
the reader the best of yourself, instead of re-warming the baked- 
meats of yesterday. Quotations — which are second-hand 
thoughts — will serve occasionally when the thing you want to 
say has been said so well by another that it would be waste 
of energy to try to say it better; but, as a rule, the utterance 
of the writer himself is more interesting than the quotation, 
because the writer brings something of himself to bear on the 
subject and for the momicnt is more in touch with the reader 
than any dear departed author. Therefore, say things as best 
you can in your own way, neither in borrowed words nor in the 
phraseology that mimics another. Write as if you were speak- 
ing to a person whom you are anxious to persuade or convince. 
You will then write better than you speak, because, in the 
first place, you can be more deliberate, and secondly, you 
can revise what you have written. 

Speaking and writing are similar mental acts, with a dif- 
ference: the difference between eating food raw and eating it 
cooked. Some kinds of food gain nothing by being cooked; 
likewise some kinds of utterance are not bettered by being 
written down first; but most expressions of thought, especially 

11 



12 TECHNICAL WRITING 

those that deal with complex ideas, must undergo preparation 
before they may be digested comfortably. The transactions 
of engineering societies are overburdened with half-baked 
chunks of knowledge that provoke mental dyspepsia. How 
palatable, on the other hand, is the carefully prepared article 
that has been seasoned with Attic salt, served with a sauce 
piquante, and dressed with the parsley of pleasant fancy — 
like the writings of Rossiter Raymond or of Clarence King. 

Composition, however, is less natural than speaking. The 
pen or the pencil intervenes between the thought and the 
expression, introducing an element of artificiality, as well as 
one of deliberation. The spoken word cannot be recalled: 
the written word can be erased. Yet it is unwise to criticize 

^ your writing as it proceeds, for such self-criticism tends to 
embarrassment or self -consciousness. Revise the work care- 
fully after it is done, not before, so as to avoid chiUing the 
warmth of composition by cold analysis. You have heard of 
the centipede that was too much aware of his many legs, and 
became hopelessly entangled. Inopportune self-criticism will 
cripple writing, just as self-consciousness prevents most men 
from becoming satisfactory after-dinner speakers. 

To be natural in writing, you must have something to say: 
something concerning which you feel impelled to write. To 
have something to say is the first requisite for effective speaking 
or writing. Most speeches and many writings are ineffective, 
if not worse, because, like an unhappy golfer, the speaker or 
writer does not see the object of his aim; he does not ''keep 
his eye on the ball." Wait until you have something definite 
to tell. Only a fool talks for the sake of talking; that is why 
so many speeches fall flat. It is unnatural for a man to write for 

^ the sake of exercising his index finger and thumb; that is why 
so much writing is a weariness of the flesh. Make sure that 
you have something to say; then say it; and when j^ouhave 
said it, stop. ''The best spoke in the wheel is the fittest, not 
the longest." 

The story is told that President Wilson, when a boy, used 



NATURALNESS 13 

to read to his father whatever he wrote. Whereupon his 
father would ask, ''What do you mean by that?" He would 
explain. ''Then write it," was the advice. If, after writing 
something, you ask yourself 'What do I mean?' you may 
discover that you have not written what you meant to say. 

The student while at college, and for some time afterward, 
is occupied mainly with the effort to acquire knowledge. To 
write is to convey information to others, which is the reverse 
of the normal youthful attitude; it involves a pose difficult 
to assume gracefully or effectively without practice; but such 
practice should be encouraged, because the effort to record 
thought involves the mobilization and marshalling of ideas, 
a disciplinary effort highly beneficial to the student's mind. 
Therefore it were well if some exercise in writing could be 
taken during the early process of acquiring knowledge. 

To write naturally, you must exercise the faculty of writing 
until it becomes flexible and strong. The best way to learn 
how to swim is to plunge into the water. Most of those who 
WTite well have written a good deal, but you may be sure that 
they have not published all of it. Do your preliminary canter- 
ing in the paddock, not on the racecourse. The good writers 
obtained their reputation by being wise enough to keep their 
preliminary trials to themselves; meanwhile they noted the 
results obtained from the methods used by others. Ben Jon- 
son said, "For a man to write w^ell there are three necessaries: 
to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much 
exercise of his own style." Naturalness comes from exercise, 
not from lack of care. 

Aristotle said, long ago: "Naturalness is persuasive and 
artificiality the reverse; for people take offence at an artificial 
speaker, as if he were practising a design upon them, in the 
same way as they take offence at mixed wines."* 

Some technical writers^ aiming to be natural, succeed only 
in being sloppy. 

(1) "If it is inconvenient to keep the muck [waste rock] 

* 'The Rhetoric of Aristotle'. Translated by J. E. C. Welldon, 1886. 



14 TECHNICAL WRITING 

drawn off, tap the dirt-way [ore-chute] a few feet up, on the 
opposite side of the man- way." 

The writer is describing a method of mining and uses the 
language of an uneducated laborer, perhaps with the idea that 
it sounds 'practical.' Here are two more examples: 

(2) ''With the advent [completion] of the new mill, which 
has a capacity of over 100 tons per day, the haulage problem 
becomes one for careful consideration [important]." 

'Advent' means the season before the Nativity; it is also 
used when referring to an important arrival, not the starting 
of a stamp-mill. The last sentence in the quotation exempli- 
fies the use of an abstract phrase instead of a concrete word. 
The language is 'natural' to a semi-literate promoter but not 
y^^ to an educated engineer. Do not mistake vulgarity for ease, 
nor inaccuracy for freedom. 

(3) "The process is said to have done such satisfactory 
work that other plants [operators] have been contemplating 
[considering] the installation [sidoption] of the process [it]." 

This also illustrates an uncouthness that simulates natural- 
ness. The writer, a graduate of a university, has fallen into 
the style of those about him in a mining community. The 
'contemplation' of plans, the 'installation' of plants, the 'inau- 
guration' of methods, and the 'prosecution' of developments 
are the stock-in-trade of local reporters and of the equally 
illiterate persons that play the mining 'game' on the frontiers 
of industry. The imitation of them should be beneath an 
educated engineer. 

Young men, when about to describe a mine or explain a 
metallurgical process, are prone to start with the idea that they 
must indulge in 'fine' writing; meaning thereby a style pitched 
several tones higher than is habitual to them. When they 
prepare matter that is to be printed, they affect a vocabulary 
"-' and a phraseology foreign to them; like the queer persons that 
have 'society' manners as distinguished from their behavior at 
home. There are public occasions, of course, when an added 
dignity of bearing is befitting. For similar reasons, it is proper 



NATURALNESS 15 

that the irresponsibility and ease of ordinary talk should give 
place to deliberate thoughtfulness when one is making a busi- 
ness statement or preparing matter for print; but the extra 
effort should not entail a pomposity that smothers the subject 
in verbiage. The attempt to write in a key higher than that 
of conversation need not provoke insincerity or affectation. 
It requires only more care and more deliberation. Write as 
if you were addressing an honored senior in your own profession 
to whom you desire to convey information; do not try to 
impress him with your skill as a stylist, but make yourself 
perfectly clear, so that he may have the benefit of any facts or 
ideas that you can place at his service. As a warning, I quote 
the following description of the Mount Morgan lode, in Aus- 
tralia : 

(4) ''It may be considered as consisting of a network of 
veins, traversing on the one hand a metamorphic matrix of a 
somewhat argillo-arenaceous composition and on the other 
hand what appears to be a feldspathic tufaceous igneous rock." 

V This is metamorphosed English pseudomorphic after flap- 
doodle. Much of the geologic description that poses as pro- 
fundity is rhetorical rot. Similarly the technical terms need- 
lessly used by half-educated writers remind one ''of the French 
that is spoken by those who do not speak French." 

A Tasmanian geologist described an ore deposit as due to 
"the effects of a reduction in temperature of the hitherto 
liquefied hydro-plutonic solutions, and their consequent regular 
precipitation. These ascended in the form of metallic super- 
heated vapors which combined eventually with ebullient 
steam to form other aqueous solutions, causing geyser-hke 
discharges at the surface, aided by subterranean and irre- 
pressible pressure." What can you make of this "geyser-like 
discharge" of language? You will find, if you take the trouble 
to translate the pretentious terms, that the description conveys 
a minimum of information with a maximum of sound: "Full 

^ of sound and fury, signifying nothing;" or, as Ruskin has said, 
"Great part of the supposed scientific knowledge of the day is 



16 TECHNICAL WRITING 

simply bad English, and vanishes the moment you trans- 
late it." 

Here is another sentence written by a young man who 
also mistook sound for sense: 

(5) "Since the installation of their air-compressor, a new 
campaign of development has been inaugurated, operations 
have been extensively prosecuted, more particularly in the 
Carboniferous limestone, which is usually so prolific of values, 
due to the well recognized leaching of mineral solutions emanat- 
ing from the plutonic magma." 

Many of these words are out of place; a bishop is installed, 
a president is inaugurated, a criminal is prosecuted, a rabbit 
is prolific. Incidentally, it may be noted that the water that 
leached the limestone probably came from above, not from 
below; originating in rain-fall, not from the depths. These 
grandiose words, being inappropriate, fail to convey a definite 
meaning; they only make a confusing noise. Probably he 
meant to say: 

''The use of the new compressor has greatly expedited 
operations, particularly in the Carboniferous limestone, which 
has been enriched by mineral solutions." 

This, however, is not satisfactory, because the sentence 
contains discrete ideas, wholly unrelated; therefore they should 
be separated, thus: 

''The use of the new compressor has greatly expedited 
operations, particularly in the Carboniferous limestone. This 
is important, because the limestone has been enriched by 
mineral solutions and therefore is a likely place to find ore." 
\/ Samuel Johnson exclaimed: "Witness the immense pom- 
posity of sesquipedalian verbiage;" and we know how he him- 
self sinned in that way. George Meredith, a master of words, 
recorded his objection to "conversing in tokens not standard 
coin," which is what 'prosecute,' 'install,' and 'prolific' are in 
such a context; they are not legal tender in the forum of 
technology; they are like Canadian quarters, British shillings, 
or French francs tendered to a merchant at Chicago or Denver, 



NATURALNESS 17 

legal though they be at Montreal, Manchester, or Marseilles. 
As you know, I hold that the use of words of Latin origin, 
usually of more than one syllable, is helpful, if not indeed 
unavoidable in expressing ideas current in technology, but 
writing becomes incoherent when words are used because of 
their sound rather than their sense. Such usage bespeaks a 
snobbishness of mind, the aping of erudition, a mere pretence. 
If a man knows what a thing really is, he describes it as black 
or white ; if he does not know what it is, he masks his ignorance 
by saying in long words that it partakes of the general quality 
of grayness. The young writers who clothe meagre observa- 
tion in elaborate words soon fall into the habit of using terms 
that they do not understand, and therefore fail to make them- 
selves understood, if indeed they do not convey information 
that is positively false. The employment of words that are 
unfamiliar to the writer, and that therefore are inconsistent 
with his own way of saying things, serves but to cripple his 
power of expression. He may get into a tangle by dragging 
strange words from afar. When he does find himself thus 
entangled he should cut loose, stating things in his own way, 
that is, in plain words that he understands thoroughly. Again 
I say: remember the reader. If you do, you will win 
respect as a writer. The man with only a smattering of his 
subject splashes all over it with words of learned sound and 
unlearned meaning, because the ability to make such a noise 
is more easily acquired than the reality of knowledge. Huxley 
said that if a man really knows his subject, "he will be able to 
speak of it in an easy language and with the completeness of 
conviction with which he talks of an every-day matter. If he 
does not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the 
technical phraseology which he has got up."* In his lectures 
to working-men Huxley showed how the fundamental truths 
of science could be stated in the simplest and most illuminat- 
ing speech, without loss of accuracy. Indeed, the ability to 

*The concluding phrase illustrates how a great writer may lapse into 
poor English. 



18 TECHNICAL WRITING 

\' explain scientific or technical matters to the unlearned is a test 
of the thoroughness of a teacher's understanding of his subject. 
If, for example, you care to test your grasp of engineering or of 
geology, try to impart what you know to a younger brother 
or sister. That is a good test of your understanding and of 
your use of language. 



III. CLEARNESS. 

The notion prevails that writing is a knack : that the skilful 
use of the pen is a gift of nature. This is an error. Dogberry 
may be responsible for it; he said: ''To be a well-informed 
man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by 
nature." Since Dogberry said it, we may be sure that Shake- 
speare thought otherwise. Ability of any sort may be partly 
innate, but my own observation and experience lead me to 
conclude that most of the easy writers have become so by 
constant practice. As I recall those who have won reputations 
with their pens, I remember that most of them have written a 
great deal and have taken particular pains to improve their 
style. The suggestion that proficiency in the difficult art is a 
happy accident calls forth an ironic smile. The larger part of 
the great writing in our literature is the result of persistent 
effort. An easy fluency has been the undoing of many; their 
flamboyant and fantastic scribbling has proved as perishable 
as froth. 

This criticism applies to technical writing also; in order 
that a technical description or discussion may hold the interest 
of the reader, at least long enough to cause him to read it to 
the end, the writing must be done carefully and systematically; 
otherwise it will fail in its purpose of conveying information. 
Clearness is absolutely essential. "It is not enough to use 
language that may be understood ; it is necessary to use language 
that must be understood."* 

From first to last, remember the reader: that is a rule 
never to be forgotten in any kind of writing except the diary. 
The diarist can shoot his words into the air; yours are aimed 
at the intelligence of a sympathetic human being. Consider 
him; if you do, you will escape half the pitfalls awaiting you. 
* Quoted by Hill from Quintilian. 
19 



20 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Clearness of statement depends, first, on the choice of words; 
next, on the order in which they are arranged; then, on the 
sequence of clauses composing a sentence; and, finally, on the 
arrangement of sentences in a paragraph. 

Select the word that is appropriate to your thought : the 
word that pertains to the thing described. 

Food is wholesome ; climate is healthful ; a person is healthy. 

A foundation is permanent; an orebody is persistent. 

A climate is equable; a contract is equitable. 

Judgment is held in suspense; sediment, in suspension. 

A problem is unsolvable; a mineral, insoluble. 

The force of steam was discovered; the steamboat was 
invented. 

We measure distance in linear feet, but pedigree by lineal 
descent. 

Good writing depends not so much upon a large vocabulary 
as upon the choice of words. The wrong word derails the 
thought; the needless word is an obstruction. A writer who 
flings needless words about him is like a swimmer who splashes ; 
neither makes speed. The blue pencil of the editor is the symbol 
of amputation because we recognize that it removes the useless 
members of the literary structure. Revision commonly denotes 
pruning. The dominant fault of the incapable writer is the 
employment of too many words. Even practised writers err 
in this respect; for example, H. G. Wells is fond of doubling 
his adjectives, thus: 

(1) ''In the preceding chapters there has been developed, 
in a clumsy, laborious way, a smudgy, imperfect picture." 

More than one adjective may be needed to describe an 
object, but each adjective should have a distinct meaning. 
Whether the adjectives in ''smudgy, imperfect picture" over- 
lap may be questioned. The proper use of adjectives and the 
use of proper adjectives can be studied profitably by any 
writer, however experienced. 

Verbosity is a sign either of carelessness or of lack of time 
for proper care. PHny wrote to a friend, nearly 1900 years 



CLEARNESS 21 

ago, '^I have not time to write you a short letter, therefore I 
have written you a long one." 

Avoid words you do not know fore and aft. Don't be 
tempted into the use of high-sounding terms that may serve 
to cover ignorance. Comprehensive words like 'development' 
and 'evolution' are often mere noise and smoke, not penetrat- 
ing shot. As the old lady was grateful for ''that blessed word 
'Mesopotamia'," so that comfortable word 'metasomatic' 
has cloaked many nebulous notions of ore deposition. Like- 
wise 'dynamic' is sadly overworked by perplexed geologists. 

(2) "The dynamic power that shattered the mountains 
and created fissures in which the ore is now found." 

So far as is indicated, the "power" might have been dynamite. 
It is amusing to recall how Ruskin twitted Tyndall for a 
similar indiscretion. Tyndall had referred to a certain theory, 
which was in debate, affirming that it, and the like of it, was 
a "dynamic power which operates against intellectual stagna- 
tion." Whereupon Ruskin commented thus : ^' How a dynamic 
power differs from an undynamic one, and, presumably, also, 
a potestatic dynamisfrom an unpotestatic one — and how much 
more scientific it is to say, instead of — that our spoon stirs 
our porridge— that it 'operates against the stagnation of our 
porridge'. Professor Tyndall trusts the reader to recognize 
with admiration." 

If you do not know how to characterize something you have 
seen, do not imagine you have done your duty when you have 
labeled it a 'phenomenon'. That is a generic term conveying 
to the scientific mind the idea of an observed fact, especially 
with relation to what is subject to change, as opposed to the 
essence of things; in a loose and popular acceptation it carries 
an impression of the unfamiliar; in either case the label 
'phenomenon' explains nothing. Macaulay said : "I have often 
observed that a fine Greek compound is an excellent substitute 
for a reason." 

In a recent controversy* a clever technician had much to 
* Trans. Inst. M. and M., London, Vol. XXIV, page 178. 



22 TECHNICAL WRITING 

say about '^orogenic" when discussing the source of ore in veins. 
He made bold to play with it for awhile, but Greek terms, like 
razors, are not to be flourished recklessly. He had to be told 
that 'opos means mountain and that 'orogenic' relates to 
mountain-making, not to the genesis of ore. Be warned there- 
fore: know what words denote before you use them. 

The rule is to use the word that will be understood by the 
reader and that at the same time expresses the meaning best. 
"Too many cooks spoil the broth" is a simple statement, which 
'Punch' transformed jocularly into "A superfluity of culinary 
assistance is apt to exercise a detrimental effect upon the 
consomme.''^ That is the language of a newspaper reporter. 

Avoid using words of similar sound, but of different mean- 
ing, in the same context. 

(3) When preparing this lecture I wrote: ''By the ivay, 
I must ask you not to weigh the value of my admonitions 
entirely by the manner in which they are conveyed to j^ou." 
Noticing the similar sound of 'way' and 'weigh', I deleted the 
introductory clause. 

(4) "The main whistle answers with two long blasts, thus 
notifying all the men on the hill that the blasting is over." 
Substitute 'calls' for "blasts." 

(5) "The requirement from the management [managers] of 
reports to stockholders, giving a detailed account of their 
stewardship, will be corrective of [correct] many of the abuses 
of managejnent [corporate responsibility]." 

(6) "The proportion of the rainfall that sinks into the 
ground naturally varies according to the character of the 
underlying rocks. But, whatsoever the nature of the rocks may 
be, they are etc." 

This was written by a geologist pre-eminent for good writ- 
ing — James Gcikie. The "naturally" does not refer to 'nature', 
it means 'obviously' or 'necessarily'. 

(7) A hydrographer writes: "This is well illustrated by 
well records." 

(8) "In the description of many of the localities described.'^ 



CLEARNESS 23 

(9) ''The problem is not simple. The best solution would 
be to roast the ore carefully, forming a silver sulphate, which is 
soluble in hot water." 

(10) ''The first light on the solution of the problem was the 
discovery that the gold was soluble in a solution of an alkaline 
mono-sulphide." The first phrase italicized can be deleted; 
and to prevent the awkwardness of using 'soluble' with 'solu- 
tion', it would be an agreeable change to write that "the gold 
dissolves in a solution of an alkaline mono-sulphide." 

When writing concerning a chemical solution, do not refer 
in the same paragraph to the solution of the problem; likewise, 
when writing on geology, do not, in the same context, refer to 
the rock formation and to the formation of the ore deposit. 
The use of a word in different senses causes confusion of thought 
in the mind of the reader. 

(11) "The guides were held so strongly by the heavy mass 
of unset [moist] concrete that the jar from passing skips only 
settled [fixed] them more firmly into place, and the initial set 
was not broken." 

He may mean the 'set', or hardening, of the cement, but as 

he is writing concerning shaft-work, he may be referring to 

a 'set', or structure, of timber; therefore he should insert 'of 

the concrete', or 'of timber', to explain. This use of 'unset', 

settled', and 'set' in the same context is bewildering. 

(12) "This spherical shape can be maintained only if the 
pressure on the inside is greater than without. Surface-tension 
only can account for this excess." 

Here 'only' is used twice and with different meanings. The 
second one should be replaced by 'alone'. The first sentence 
can be improved thus. 

"The spherical shape cannot be maintained unless the 
pressure &c." 

(13) "A loose knot is one not held firmly in place." 

(14) "The ore, or the vein itself even, is hard to trace." 

(15) "This machine is preferable /or the /our reasons already 
indicated." 



24 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Oliver Wendell Holmes said: ''People that make puns are 
like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad-tracks." 

When you use a word that has more than one meaning, 
make clear the sense in which you are using it, by the context 
or by an explanation. Of two words that may be employed in 
the same sense, select the one susceptible of a single interpre- 
tation. 

(16) "He prepared a partial account of the events that pre- 
ceded the strike." Was his account prejudiced or was it only 
incomplete? 

(17) ''This required the partial [part of the] time of a man 
who might be using this time [employed] to better advantage." 

(18) "Sometimes partially [partly] formed pyrite crystals 
have barite between them, and the galena crystals are partial 
[incomplete] and enclose some barite." 

(19) The 'New RcpubUc' says, "In order to justify the 
sternness of the protest- the case itself should be at least par- 
tially established." Casos may be established partially, that 
is, with partiality. The editor meant 'in part' or 'partly'. 

(20) "The work described herein forms part of a partially 
completed [an uncompleted] study of sulphur di-oxide." 

A 'partially' completed work may be one that is complete 
in part or one that is generally unfinished. 

(21) "It is impossible to amalgamate coal-tar thoroughly 
with the pulp in the agitating-tank." 

In milling, 'amalgamate' refers to the combination of 
mercury with one or both of the precious metals. To use this 
term as a synonym for 'mix intimately' or 'emulsify' is bewil- 
dering. 

(22) "John W. Smith, the late manager of the Wild-Cat 
mine, was unable to make it pay." 

Is Mr. Smith dead? Was he the former or was he the 
deceased manager? Or was he merely unpunctual? If he was 
alive when the sentence was written — and he was — he should 
have been described as "lately [or recently] the manager". 

Avoid needless indirection, as by using a double negative. 



CLEARNESS 25 

(23) ''The details of the methods used abroad are not un- 
known to American chemists." 

He proceeds to state that they are thoroughly known. 

(24) ''The inefficiency [efficiency] of labor at these mines 
has increased [decreased] very little." 

The affirmative is preferable to the indirect negative, for 
example : 

(25) "In this part of Mexico the vitreous type of rhyolite 
is not unco7nmon [common]." 

(26) "There is no reason to believe that the mine is as rich 
as represented." 

"There is reason to believe that the mine is less rich than 
represented." 

Possibly the ore was such as to render mining unprofitable, 
then "less rich" should give place to 'poorer'. 

The choice of the right article is important. 

(27) "Reduce the loss in the residue to a [the] minimum." 
He said 'a' as an elegant variation on 'the', which he had 

used twice just before, but the use of 'a' before minimum sug- 
gests that he did not know what was the minimum attainable. 

(28) "I used a process in which manganese oxide serves as 
purifier of the electrolyte." 

He means: "I used the process in which manganese oxide 
serves to purify the electrolyte." It was a particular process, 
well known to those interested in the subject — that of refining 
copper. 

(29) "He used the method that he had learned while at 
Broken Hill, in Australia." 

The 'method' is not explained or described; it remains 'a 
method'; therefore 'a' should replace 'the'; otherwise his 
readers are likely to be puzzled. 

Do not confuse time with place. For example: 

(30) "The ore sometimes [in places] has a distinctly banded 
structure." 

(31) "Such ore deposits are oi frequent occurrence [numer- 
ous or of common occurrence] in Nevada." 



26 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(32) "This kind of ore is frequenthj met with in Colorado.'' 
One does not 'meet' ore either once or many times; the 

sentence should read: 

''This kind of ore is found in many mines in Colorado.'' 

(33) " Meta-cinnabarite is not a very common mineral, 
and when [where] it does occur [is found] there is usually some 
cinnabar with it.^'' 

Delete 'very' and 'with it', thus placing 'meta-cinnabarite' 
and 'cinnabar' in emphatic positions at the beginning and end, 
respectively, of the sentence. 

(34) "The pyrite outcrop is always [everywhere] oxidized." 

(35) "These crystals are sometimes [in spots] as much as 
an inch in diameter." 

(36) "Richer ore is invariably found when [where] the 
lodes are in the sandstone." 

(37) "Ai times [in places] the vein pinches to a mere thread." 

(38) "The vein when [where] it is thickest breaks into small 
stringers." 

The use of the correct adverbial phrase is more descriptive, 
it evokes the correct image and thereby fulfills the purpose of 
language. 

(39) "This coal has been measured in several instances [at 
several points or in several places]." 

(40) "True conglomerate was observed on rare occasions 
[rarely or at points widely separated]." 

(41) "Only part of the time [in places] will erosion expose the 
formation for our study." 

(42) "The formation in which the deposits occur is horn- 
blende-schist, which near the surface is often [in several places] 
altered to chlorite-schist." 

The introductory clause is not commendable ; he is speaking 
of one ore deposit; he uses the plural unnecessarily, and employs 
that tiresome word 'occur'. He means to say that the 'ore- 
bearing rock', or the 'rock enclosing the ore deposit', is horn- 
blende-schist. 

(43) "When [where] the cost of sulphuric acid is high, and 



CLEARNESS 27 

where the quantity of shale to be retorted is small, then [there] 
and in such case it is possible that the probable financial results 
would not warrant the expenditure of capital required to con- 
struct the plant for the manufacture of the ammonium sul- 
phate." 

It is not a question of time but of place; he is referring to 
the exploitation of shale in remote localities, ''And in such 
case" is redundant; it is a mere frill. So also are the words 
''it is possible that". He means that where sundry conditions 
prevail there "the financial result probably would not warrant 
the expenditure." 

(44) "The rich veins diminish often in richness as depth is 
gained." 

If they diminish "often" they must soon be done to a fraz- 
zle. It does not require a Byzantine logothete to inform the 
student that the adverb must be put as near as possible to 
the word it modifies. Here 'often' modifies 'diminish' and it 
might precede that verb, but, more truly, 'often' modifies the 
whole statement and it would be better to say "Often the veins 
diminish in richness as depth is gained." But he does not mean 
'often'; he means that 'many' or 'most' of the veins become 
impoverished with increase of depth, and he ought to say so. 

As the stage reeled close to the edge of the precipice the timid 
passenger asked the driver, "Do people often fall over the edge 
here?" "No", said the driver, "only once." 

(45) "These rocks are nearly always red." 
"Most of these rocks are red." 

(46) "These pebbles are aZmos^ nez;er striated." 

"Few of these pebbles are striated," or "Only a few of the 
pebbles are striated." 

(47) "The rock contains much altered plagioclase." He 
means not a large proportion of altered plagioclase but much- 
altered or greatly altered plagioclase.* 

*From G. M. Wood's 'The Principal Faults Found in Manuscripts 
Submitted for Publication by Members of the United States Geological 
Survey.' 1907. 



28 TECHNICAL WRITING 

* Where' is used awkwardly when not referring to place: 

(48) ''I gave another tabulation where the addition of lime 
has a marked retarding effect on the slime settlement.'' 

Substitute 'showing that' for 'where', and use 'settling of 
slime' at the close. 

Do not hesitate to define a term the meaning of which may- 
be doubted. When you do so, avoid the use of terms that 
themselves need to be explained. As Samuel Johnson said: 
" To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse than 
that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always 
be 'found. For as nothing can be proved but by supposing 
something intuitively known, and evident without proof, so 
nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to 
admit of definition." 

Dr. Johnson sinned grossly against his own precept; for 
example, he defined a 'network' as "that which is reticulated 
or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the 
intersections." A fisherman, when a witness in court, defined 
a net as "little square holes with string tied around them." 

Dean Swift defined an archdeacon as "a man who per- 
formed archidiaconal functions." Which left things worse 
than ever. 

Do not define in terms that need to be defined; do not spare 
definitions. Many technical articles lead nowhere simply 
because the writer has not made it clear whither he is driving. 
To discuss the persistence of ore ih depth, for example, is 
hopeless unless the principal terms, 'ore' and 'depth', are defined. 
Definitions tend to clear the thought of the writer just as they 
clarify the understanding of the reader. 



IV. PRECISION. 

"The chief aim in style ought to be absolute precision' ^ 
said Flaubert. "There is only one noun that can express your 
idea, only one verb that can set that idea in motion, and only 
one adjective that is the proper epithet for that noun." Let 
this be your motto. The engineer aims to be exact in all his 
measurements; he should measure his language with similar 
exactness. The technical term is a word of precision. It is not 
only precise, it is a word-saver. To the unscientific the earth is 
"si ball slightly flattened at the poles, something like an orange". 
To the scientific it is "an oblate spheroid". A similar contrast 
between the precision of the technical term and the vagueness 
of common words is afforded by a conversation between Ivanhoe 
and Rebecca: 

" 'What device does he bear in his shield? ' asked Ivanhoe. 

' Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock painted 
blue on a black shield.' 

'A fetterlock and shacklebolt azure', said Ivanhoe" — using 
the technical terms of heraldry. 

It is good style in writing, however, to adapt your manner 
of expression to the intelligence and experience of the person or 
persons to whom the writing is addressed. The description of 
a mine should be worded differently according as it is intended 
to inform a mining engineer, a director, or a bishop, remem- 
ber THE READER. 

It is as incorrect to write in a technical way for a non- 
technical reader as to write in a popular way for a technical or 
scientific reader. That is the best style which enables the writer 
to place himself in the closest mental touch with his reader, to 
establish a maximum of sympathetic understanding. Let 
your precision be proportioned to your accuracy. You should 
not try to be precise in matters that do not admit of accuracy, 

29 



30 TECHNICAL WRITING 

any more than you should be vague in matters that require 
exactness. The technical writer must be sincere. Sincerity is 
the first essential of all good work. It is absurd to state the 
average value of the ore in a gold mine to three places of deci- 
mals of a pennyweight, or its equivalent in money, because 
no sampling and assaying can be done so accurately as to give 
results trustworthy within limits so narrow. 

The engineer for the Globe & Phoenix mine in Rhodesia, 
for example, stated the average assay-value of the gold ore in 
that mine on June 30, 1910, at 32.259 dwt. per ton. The three 
decimals were only a florid decoration. The same engineer 
gave the total tonnage of the ore as 174,788. The last three 
figures signified nothing; they were only an arithmetical frill. 
He could not ascertain the average gold content within half a 
pennyweight per ton, nor could he estimate the available ton- 
nage of ore within a thousand tons. The sequel proved that 
even these Umits of accuracy were beyond his skill. 

Another engineer gave the average value of the gold content 
of the ground to be dredged on the Natomas property, in Cali- 
fornia, to four decimals of a cent per cubic yard. On January 
1, 1909, he estimated a yardage of 342,995,536 and a gross 
yield of 9.9395 cents per cubic yard. In each set of figures the 
last three were merely pretentious. Such meticulous precision 
is an impertinence to the profession; it is an imposition on the 
shareholders. The estimate was wrong by several million 
dollars. 

Do not express a forecast in terms of history nor an approxi- 
mation in terms of measurement. In short, in writing a tech- 
nical report, remember that good style calls for sincerity. As 
elaborate precision of statement is out of place in an inexact 
generalization, so also beauty of phrasing may defeat the 
purpose of writing if it be intended to accomplish a non- 
aesthetic purpose. Ruskin wrote so exquisitely that people 
missed the moral of his utterance in the enjoyment of his 
assonant periods. He recognized the fact too late and expressed 
his regret. In a lecture on 'The Mystery of Life', in 1868, 



\/ 



PRECISION 31 

he said: 'Tor I have had what in many respects I boldly 
call the misfortune to set my words sometimes prettily together; 
not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack of doing so; 
until I was heavily punished for this pride by finding that many 
people thought of the words only and cared nothing for their 
meaning." 

Suit the style to the purpose; fitness is the essence of good 
taste. 

Words like 'percentage' are terms of precision; so are deci- 
mals; they should not be used in making approximations or 
rough estimates. 

(1) ''The operation will take about 1.5 hours." 

The statement is an approximation and should read: 
"The operation will take about an hour and a half." 

(2) "About 50% [half] of the old hands returned each sea- 
son." 

(3) "The tailings from the vanners consist of approximately 
75% sands and 25% slimes." 

To say '75%' is not an approximation; it is a precise state- 
ment, not warranted in this instance. Note the unnecessary 
plurals. 

"The tailing from the vanners consists of three parts sand 
and one part slime." 

(4) "This increased the percentage [proportion] of colloids 
in the flotation cell." 

(5) "A large per cent [part] of the oil lost will probably be 
recovered." 

The word 'percentage' should not be used without reference 
to exact figures; it is a term of precision and should not be 
employed recklessly. 

(6) "The underflow has a specific gravity of 1500." 

Do not use zeros where they are meaningless. He wrote 
1.500 instead of 1.5, and the type-setter did the rest. 

The hankering for the abstract is exemplified by the vogue 
attained by 'value' and 'values' in mining reports. In a stope 
or in a mill the use of 'value' in this way may cause no con- 



32 TECHNICAL WRITING 

fusion, even if it be an objectionable colloquialism, but in 
technical writing it should be taboo, as the very type of all that 
is non-descriptive and unscientific. ''This mill is intended to 
extract the values in the ore" is a vague way of stating that the 
mill is designed to extract the gold or silver, the copper or 
the zinc — in short, the valuable metals in the ore. In one 
mill the zinc, for example, may be not only valueless but a 
deleterious impurity; in another the copper may be insufficient 
in quantity to be extracted profitably, but sufficient to inter- 
fere with the saving of the gold by cyanidation. 'Value' is 
the worth or desirability of a thing; it is an attribute, not a 
substance. A man w^ho designs a mill "to catch the values" 
might as well build a railroad to pursue a quadratic equation. 

(7) "In sinking, the values were lost." Meaning that the 
ore failed, or discontinued. 

(8) "And then the gold values are precipitated on zinc 
shavings." No, it is the metalHc gold that is precipitated; 
you can precipitate a panic by reckless banking, but you 
cannot precipitate anything so intangible as 'values' on some- 
thing so tangible as 'zinc shaving'. As the farmer said, "It ain't 
in the nature of things". 

(9) A mining engineer sent a cablegram from Nigeria 
stating: "There are many years' work ahead and from actual 
results the ground is good in values. '^ 

The ground might be rich in vulgar fractions! 

(10) "All values can be freed from the gangue by better 
crushing." The gangue will be much reheved when these 
ghosts are exorcised. 

(11) "It might be supposed that the beating of such 
particles of metallic values [metal] against the side of the tube- 
mill would anneal them and put such values [them] into leaf 
form." 

(12) "The gold values are not chemically united in pyrite 
as a sulphide of iron and gold." 

He means: "The gold is not chemically combined with the 
iron in the pyrite as a sulphide of iron and gold." 



PRECISION 33 

(13) '' Better values are, however, obtained above the 1970- 
ft. level as the lode is opened out on.^^ 

'^ Richer ore is being exposed in the course of stoping above 
the 1970-ft. level." 

(14) ''Rich sands in which the gold and platinum values 
are flaky and coated." 

Here Values' is interjected from force of habit. 'Value' 
cannot be "flaky or coated". Delete "values". The plural 
of 'sand ' is not required. 

(15) "Along the rivers the values are coarser than in the 
beaches." 

He is referring to the particles of platinum; he should say so. 

(16) "The highest copper values are concentrated along the 
post-dacite faults." 

"The copper is concentrated along the post-dacite faults." 
Sufficient examples have been quoted. The misuse of this 
word is among the most objectionable of technical solecisms. 
It connotes utter lack of precision. In every case it tends to 
befog the meaning, for even if the reader guesses that the 
writer is referring to a particular metal or mineral, the use of 
Value' suggests such a proportion of the metal or mineral as 
will yield an economic — that is, a profitable — result. Only too 
frequently 'value' is used to designate mineral or rock con- 
taining too little of the valuable metal to be a source of profit — 
that is, to be 'ore'. In short, the woolly use of 'value' becomes a 
means of conveying an untruth. No word in the vocabulary 
of the mining engineer requires to be used with greater care 
than 'value'. It is a disgrace to the mining engineering pro- 
fession that this term should be employed so loosely. Sir 
Clifford Allbutt has said truly: "It is strange that scientific 
men who habitually work in dimensions of a ten-thousandth 
of an inch are either blind to gross confusions of argument and 
to false refractions of meaning or regard them with indifference." 
One of the greatest enemies to precision in technical writing 
is the use of the abstract instead of the concrete. An abstract 
noun denotes quahty, state, or action, apart from anything 



34 TECHNICAL WRITING 

possessing the quality, state, or action. For instance, in pre- 
paring my first lecture, I wrote 

(17) ''Words are intended jor the conveyance of ideas J^ 
But I corrected myself: 

''Words are intended to convey ideas." 

(18) Again, I wrote: "If you do so, you will succeed in 
avoiding most of the grosser errors." 

This I changed to : 

"If you do so, you will avoid most of the grosser errors." 

Prefer the concrete to the abstract. The use of the abstract 

tends to circumlocution; it produces obscurities that are fatal 

to precision. 

(19) "Repair work was greatly facilitated hy the presence 
of chutes every 25 ft. along the drifts." 

How can "the presence" of a chute facilitate repairs? It 
is the use of it that helps. He meant: 

"The work of repair Avas facilitated by using the chutes, 
which had been placed at intervals of 25 ft. along the drifts." 

(20) "Such deposits of quartz are not valuable unless they 
are close to cheap transportation.^^ 

The abstraction 'cheap transportation' is a mere indirection 
in place of the concrete idea expressed by 'railway' or 'steamer' ; 
he does not say which. 

(21) "When tungsten ore occurs in disseminated grains, 
it is more difficult of detection [to detect] than when it is found 
in masses of considerable size." 

(22) "It is this accumulation of ore which [that] is at the 
same time the cause of present conditions and a preventative of 
an early release of the embargo." 

This statement is burdened with many useless words. 
"Preventative", of course, is a sophomoric blunder. Even 'a 
preventive' is a roundabout way of stating what he means. 
I suggest a change to : 

"This accumulation of ore threatens the market and pre- 
vents an early release of the embargo." The embargo refers 
to the refusal of the local smelters to treat more ore. 



PRECISION 35 

(23) " When the oxygen in air is gradually reduced very little 
effect may be noticed before the occurrence of iinpairment of 
the senses and loss of power over the limbs." 

A loss of power in the writer's pen may be noticed like- 
wise. His two abstract nouns, 'occurrence" and 'impairment', 
becloud his meaning almost to the vanishing point. He means: 

''When the oxygen in air is reduced gradually, the effect 
may not be noticed until the senses are weakened and the 
power to control the limbs is lost." 

(24) "As pig-iron was used for the precipitation of [to pre- 
cipitate] the copper." 

(25) "Fine grinding was introduced, and with it the more 
or less complete eliminatioii of amalgamation as one of the 
means of extracting the precious metal from the ore." 

To introduce "the elimination of amalgamation" is not good 
form in literary society. 

"Fine grinding was adopted, and amalgamation became 
no longer necessary to extract the gold from the ore." 

(26) "In order that the subsequent sinking through the 
rock to the coal-bearing veins could be proceeded with^ 

The statement is improved by substituting the direct phrase 
for the circumlocution, thus: 

"In order to sink through the rock to the coal-seams without 
further delay." 

(27) "He continued the drift so long as the richness of the 
ore lasted and then he ceased his exploration^ 

"He continued to drift only as long as the rich ore lasted." 

(28) "The mill-superintendent found that he improved 
the extraction of the gold by a previous precipitation of the copper 
in the ore." 

"The mill-superintendent found that he could extract 
more gold if he first precipitated the copper in the ore." 

(29) "If the feast-days were not of such frequent occurrence 
[so frequent]." 

(30) " Much has been done in the investigation and study of [to 
investigate] the local geology." Investigation involves study. 



36 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(31) "The glass model of the mine is most instructive 
and illuminating in setting forth the nature of the development, 
exploitation and geological features of the property." 

''The glass model shows admirably the development, 
exploitation, and geology of the mine." 

(32) ''Anything that tends toward atrophying [to atrophy] 
the power of the individual." 

Nothing tends so much to atrophy the function of writing 
as the frequent use of the abstract instead of the concrete. 
As Spencer said: "Exactness is not only unappreciated by, but 
even repugnant to, minds in low stages." 

(33) "It seems rather a waste of opportunity to fall back 
on 'basic salts' when there are so many other scintillating 
resources open to our pencil-and-paper speculative chemistry.'' 

He spent too much effort in scintillating and not enough on 
correct expression; he uses 'chemistry' for 'chemists', the 
abstract for the concrete, and thereby spoils his rhetorical 
outburst. 

In nouns, prefer the concrete to the abstract ; in verbs, choose 
the active voice rather than the passive, and the positive rather 
than the negative. 

(34) "An outline of the process may be of help to those not 
familiar with cyanidation." 

Delete the three words indicated. 

(35) "These alloyed metals are the most difficult of solu- 
tion [to dissolve]." 

(36) "By a refusal to recognize the union he secured an 
assurance of freedom in his operations." 

"By refusing to recognize the union, he assured himself 
freedom in his operations." 

(37) "These demands for supplies must be anticipated, 
often as much as six months, to allow the certainty of the goods 
being on hand when needed.'' 

The last clause should read, "so as to have the goods on 
hand when needed". 

(38) "This makes it necessary to determine the vakie of 



PRECISION 37 

all sorts of property, a task which [that] will he -productive of 
[create] endless disputes." 

The direct statement is more explicit. 

(39) ''This makes the use of coal for generating power 
prohibitive." 

"This prohibits the use of coal for generating power." 

(40) "This will he dependent upon other conditions." 
"This will depend upon other conditions." 

"A remarkably cheap machine" is better than "A machine 
of remarkable cheapness." 

"He increased the speed of the machine" is better than 
"The machine was given an increase of speed." 

As Quiller-Couch says: "The first virtue, the touchstone 
of a masculine style, is its use of the active verb and the con- 
crete noun. When you write in the active voice, 'They gave 
him a silver teapot', you write as a man. When you write 'He 
was made the recipient of a silver teapot', you write jargon." 

Those who hanker for the abstract also use the plural 
unnecessarily. 

(41) "An effort to ohtain further reduction in working costs." 
Here we have an abstract noun and the plural used to make 

a vague statement, instead of saying: 

"An effort to reduce the working cost still further." 

(42) "The extra costs to he met with as depth is obtained." 
Why the plural of cost? Note also the childish "to be met 

with". He means: 

"The increased cost to be incurred as depth is attained." 

(43) "The ores occur in limestone and are thoroughly 
oxidized, so that the occurrence of galena is rather uncommon." 

He was writing about the ore of a particular mine remarkable 
for containing a peculiar kind of galena used in the apparatus 
of wireless telegraphy. 

"The ore is found in limestone and is thoroughly oxidized, 
so that galena is rare." 

(44) "Resulting in less losses of gold and lower costs, 56 to 
35 cents per cubic yard." 



38 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Why the plural? He means: 

*'The result being a smaller loss of gold and the reduction 
of the cost from 56 cents per cubic yard to 35 cents." 

(45) ''The discoverers were guided to the outcrop by the 
occurrence of the gold in the gravels of the neighborhood.'^ 

The 'occurrence' did not guide them, but the gold they 
found. 

"The discoverers were guided to the outcrop by the gold 
they found in the gravel near-by." 

Why gravels? Because it sounds more comprehensive, more 
inclusive, more magnificent. The squandering of that valu- 
able inflection, the plural, is all part of the love for the abstract, 
the dislike of the concrete. In the above example the writer 
referred to a deposit of gravel, possibly to more than one deposit 
of gravel, but not to several kinds of gravel. One might suppose 
that each bit of stone in such an alluvial deposit was a 'gravel' 
and that the accumulation of them made 'gravels'. Illiterate 
men undoubtedly retain this idea. As used in geology, 'gravel' 
is a term covering a particular kind of deposit and the collective 
form of such a deposit. In the same way careless writers talk 
about "a vein in the slates", recalling the individual slates on 
which they did sums when small boys, or thinking of the 
'slates' used for roofing. In geology, 'slate' is a rock char- 
acterized by a cleavage independent of the planes of sedi- 
mentation. ' Slates' should refer to several series of such rocks. 
The man who uses 'gravels' and 'slates' when he means to 
refer to a deposit of the one kind or to a rock of the other kind 
has squandered a useful inflection; and when he really needs 
the plural to indicate several kinds or deposits of either 'gravel ' 
or 'slate' he is unable to do so. 

Until a few years ago it was the invariable custom when 
referring to various mill-products to speak and write of 'slimes', 
'sands', 'tailings', 'middhngs', and 'concentrates'. The singular 
had dropped out of use. Indeed, habitual carelessness of speech 
had developed such an absurdity as the use of 'tailings' to indi- 
cate the pyritic concentrate collected in the stamp-mills of 



PRECISION 39 

Colorado, and the employment of ^rock' to designate the copper 
ore of Michigan. Engineers write of the 'ores' of a mine that 
produces only one kind of ore and talk of the 'rocks' that a vein 
traverses when it is wholly encased in one kind of rock. 

This is a mormonism of style; it leans toward the vague 
and poetic, as we speak of ''the sands of Time". It bespeaks 
that inveterate love of the abstract against which I have been 
warning you. In technology, the unnecessary plural (I had 
written "these unnecessary plurals", but corrected myself) is 
an obstacle to precision. For instance, a 'concentrate' is the 
product of a concentrating process; if several such products 
are obtained, as happens frequently, they are called correctly 
'concentrates'. Thus: 

(46) "At Broken Hill the mills produce lead and zinc 
concentrates, the lead concentrate being more easy to sell 
than the zinc." 

Does not the discriminating use of the plural inflection help 
to make the meaning clear? Here is another good example : 

(47) "An intimate mixture of the pyritic and the lead con- 
centrates is made, resulting in a product assaying 15 oz. alike 
in gold and silver, and about 25% lead." 

These two products of concentration, characterized by pyrite 
and galena, respectively, are mixed to form one product before 
shipment to the smelter. 

(48) "Seven different slimes were tested, the results being 
given herewith. These slimes are derived from as many ores, 
from different parts of the mine or from several dumps."" 

Note the value of the plural in 'slimes', 'results', 'ores', 
'parts', and 'dumps'. 

The pulp in a mill, when classified, is separated into a coarse 
product, 'sand', and a fine product, 'slime'. More than one 
kind of these products is made. 

(49) "An experiment was made on two sands having the 
following analyses. Which sands is the finest? ^^ 

He meant "Which sand is the finer?" A more intelligent 
writer says: 



40 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(50) ''Here, as at El Oro, one can calculate exactly the 
extraction from a sand whfen the sizing-test has been made." 

The discard from a mill or machine is the 'tailing'. Suppose, 
as often happens, that the discards from several similar machines 
are mingled while on their way to be re-treated by another 
kind of machine, how are you to express the idea if you have 
beggared yourself of your distinction between singular and 
plural? 

(51) " This idea of not returning the middling to the machine 
that has separated it, has been adopted as a vital principle of 
the mill. The middlings of the classifying jigs (products No. 
8 and 9) and the hutch-product (No. 13) are crushed sepa- 
rately through fine rolls. The crushed product has the char- 
acteristic that practically all the galena freed by crushing is 
found in the fine sand and slime, and that the oversize of a 22- 
mesh screen (0.6 mm. aperture) does not «ontain sufficient 
free galena to make it worth while to concentrate the over- 
size before re-grinding." 

Note the intelligent use of the singular of 'middling' in the 
opening sentence and the effective use of the plural imme- 
diately afterward. If the plural of 'sand', 'slime', 'oversize', 
and 'product' had been employed in the fashion of the ordinary 
careless writer, the meaning of the statement would have been 
fogged. It is not easy to write clearly on such highly technical 
operations, and it is impossible to do so unless we use every 
device for making fine distinctions. One of the elementary dis- 
tinctions is furnished by the plural; why throw it away? 

On this detail in technical writing I have insisted for many 
years, and not without effect. When the leaders in technical 
science in South Africa decided to prepare a comprehensive 
treatise on the mining and metallurgy of the great goldfield of 
the Witwatersrand they issued a style-sheet requesting con- 
tributors to use 'slime', 'concentrate', 'tailing', and so forth, 
unless the reference was to several of these products. Many 
American technical writers and practising engineers have 
adopted my suggestion. Other mormonisms persist. Writers 



PRECISION 41 

speak of 'fines' but they do not say 'coarses'; why not use 
'fine' in contrast to 'coarse'? Writers on the geology of mining 
districts often speak of 'schists', 'hmestones, and 'sandstones', 
when the reference is to one, and only one, terrain or formation 
of schist, limestone, or sandstone. Here again the idea lurks 
in the background that a layer of limestone is a limestone, a 
bed of sandstone is a sandstone, and a lamina of schist is a 
schist. It is impossible to tell from the statements of such 
writers whether they are speaking of several formations or of 
several kinds of limestone or schist. 

(52) "The vein crossed the bedded sandstones." 
He means "the beds of sandstone". 

(53) "The banded ironstones have been much disturbed 
and shattered." 

This refers to a single formation of banded ironstone; he 
has his eye on the multiple bands of the ironstone. 

(54) "The slates being highly silicified cause the main lode 
shear-lines to split." 

He means that 

"The slate, being highly silicified, causes a splitting of the 
shear-zone that constitutes the main lode." 

Coal for domestic use in England was formerly called 'sea- 
coals', because it came by sea and because each piece was sup- 
posed to be a 'coal', and Englishmen stiil speak of 'coals', 
meaning 'coal ' in the sense in which the word is used in America, 
where the plural may be used to signify different kinds of 
coal. 

Note the fondness for the plural in references to depth : 

(55) "In this mine the ore has been followed to great 
depths.'^ 

He means "to a great depth". 

(56) "Rich ore has been found to considerable depths.^* 

In such phrases the plural causes vagueness, and, pre- 
sumably, to ignorant persons it seems more impressive for that 
reason. As a technical statement it loses in precision and in 
effect. Substitute the singular and see for yourself. 



42 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Better, however, than either the singular or the plural of 
'depth' would be the actual measurement in feet, for the term 
'depth' is relative and means little apart from some standard 
by which it may be measured. 

Here are some more examples of the unnecessary plural: 

(57) ''The labor situation on these fields is critical." 

This is a common British vulgarism. The reference is to a 
particular goldfield, that of the Rand. ' Fields' is bucolic. 

(58) "In January we treated 3186 tons of concentrates and 
produced 2711 tons of calcines^ 

One kind of concentrate was treated, yielding a uniform 
calcine. 

(59) "Our costs for roasting are of little value on account of 
the shortness of the period." 

Why the plural? He refers to one item of expense, not 
several. 

(60) "Extensive tracts of alluvialsJ^ 

He meant "an extensive tract of alluvial groimd", but 
thought it grander to use two plurals. 

(61) "These estates contain important deposits of iron ores 
as well as gold and copper ores J' 

Only one kind of iron ore — hematite — was known to exist, 
therefore the plural is misleading. The property consisted of 
one consolidated group of mining claims, therefore 'estates' is 
only a sample of careless magniloquence. 

A professor writes concerning the treatment of quicksilver 
"ores" by flotation. He had in mind the one important ore 
of quicksilver, cinnabar, and was not referring to native 
mercury, electrum, or meta-cinnabarite. Moreover, in dis- 
cussing a metallurgical process, he would have been more pre- 
cise if he had referred to the mineral itself (cinnabar) rather 
than to 'ore', much less "ores", and added a note concerning 
the nature of the gangue. 

(62) " His present whereabouts are unknown. The editors 
of the 'Atlantic Monthly ' ". 

This appears in a foot-note. The use of the plural verb 



PRECISION 43 

suggests that he might be in several places at the same moment. 
The editors do not know the particular place where he hap- 
pens to be, and the use of the singular verb would convey the 
correct idea without puzzling the reader further. 'Where- 
abouts' is not a true plural, but merely a variant of there- 
about'. 

The choice between singular and plural is a matter of hap- 
hazard to many writers. For instance. United States, Govern- 
ment, Cabinet, committee, company, management are given 
a plural verb more often than the singular. Sometimes both are 
used in the same context. The American Ambassador to the 
Court of St. James, in transmitting a diplomatic note from 
Washington to the British Government under date of December 
28, 1914, used the plural and the singular impartially after 
'Government', thus: 

(63) "The Government of the United States have viewed." 

''The Government has so often exhibited." 

"The British Government were satisfied." 

"This Government is forced." 

"The Government of the United States do not intend." 

"This Government is informed." 

"The Government of the United States are informed." 

"The Government believes.''^ 

"The Government of the United States expresses J^ 

It is correct to say : " The United States is a great country" ; 
also "These United States have increased in number since the 
Civil War." The United States is a political entity. 

The Government is a unit. The members of it are united 
for purposes of national administration. The Cabinet is a 
select committee of the party in political control; the politicians 
in the Cabinet are men of various aptitudes. We say "The 
company is about to buy another mine", if this refers to the 
act of a corporation. So, hkewise, "The management was highly 
respected", and "The committee consists of nine persons". In 
all these words the collective sense is impHcit and the use of the 
singular makes it clear that the writer is speaking of collective 



44 TECHNICAL WRITING 

action or unified decision. If not, then the plural becomes 
necessary; thus "The members of the committee were unable to 
agree" is better than "the committee was not agreed". 

The choice between the singular and the plural verb after 
a subject containing numerals is likely to perplex the technical 
writer. Thus, he will say either 

(64) "Fully 1000 tons of ore was crushed" or 
"Fully 1000 tons of ore were crushed." 

The phrase '1000 tons of ore' signifies a quantity con- 
sidered as a unit, not the separate tons, therefore the verb 
should be in the singular. While concord requires that a verb 
shall agree in number with its subject, yet when the meaning 
is in conflict with number, it is well to allow logical considera- 
tions to prevail over the grammatical, so that subject and verb 
are in different number, thus : 

(65) "5000 oz. of gold was produced." 

(66) "$40 was collected." 

(67) "Three feet was then cut off the pipe." 

(68) "Twenty years is a long time." 

(69) "Forty yards is too far." 

(70) "Twice two is four." 

(71) "Two-thirds has been lost." 

All the above are sanctioned by good usage. We say "1000 
tons was crushed" because the idea of 'ore' is implicit and we 
are thinking of the tonnage in mass and not of a thousand 
separate tons. Such a locution refers to an amount in weight 
and not separate things. On the other hand, we might say: 
''Five tons were tested in one-ton lots"; but it is preferable to 
say: "Five one-ton lots were tested". Again, in "Forty 
barrels of oil was stored in the tank", the quantity measured 
in barrels is regarded as a unit; whereas in "Forty barrels of 
oil were stored in the warehouse" the verb may be plural if 
the oil is contained in 40 separate barrels meant to be con- 
sidered individually. 

(72) "11 cc. of iodine solution were [was] used to titrate." 
Here 'was' is inconsistent with the grammar, but con- 



PRECISION 45 

sistent with the idea, namely, that iodine to the amount of 

11 cc. was used in the titration. 

In such statements the idea of quantity is impHcit, thus: 
"An 11 cc. quantity (or volume) of iodine solution was 

used." 

"A 1000-ton quantity (or weight) of ore was crushed." 
The idea of quantity being impHcit, the word for quantity 

is omitted, and we have the adjectival phrase alone remaining 

as the apparent subject. 

Two nouns may indicate one subject: *'A block and tackle 

is employed." 

Collective nouns are sometimes joined to plural verbs when 

the statement is meant to apply to the individuals of a group, 

thus: 

(73) ''The people are one and they have one language." 

(74) ''The public have various opinions." 

This view of the matter is stretched by some writers to 
sanction such phrases as : 

(75) "The Smith & Jones Co. have built a new mill." 

(76) "The management have refused to raise wages." 
Such usage is not to be commended, because the building 

of a mill or the raising of wages is an act directed by the 'com- 
pany' or the 'management' as a unit, not by the various mem- 
bers as individuals. 



V. SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS. 

The purposes of composition are various; one purpose, for 
instance, is to make a record for the writer's own use, as in a 
diary. That does not involve responsibiUty to others. There 
is also the writing meant to influence opinion, to be persuasive 
and pleasing. With such writing we need not concern ourselves 
at this stage of our study. The prime purpose of technical 
writing is to be informative — to convey information — there- 
fore it must be clear beyond the chance of misunderstanding. 

Such clearness is impossible if meaningless or wrong words 
are sprinkled through the text. Discard the trivial words that 
are constantly at your elbow. Brush aside a host of vapid 
' superlatives. Metternich exclaimed: ''The superlative is the 
mark of fools." It is a false emphasis, like the underlining in 
a school-girl's letter. For example, the little word 'very' 
can be deleted nine times out of ten; it is an impediment to 
terse and perspicuous writing, as the multitudinous hand- 
baggage of the British tourist is to his travel. 'Very' supposes 
comparison. A mine with a 1000-ft. shaft is very deep to the 
scribe who writes from the Joplin district, in Missouri, but it 
seems a shallow hole to a man living at Calumet, Michigan. 
A vein that is 10 feet across may be considered very wide at 
Cripple Creek, Colorado, but it is only a 'stringer' to the miner 
at the Homestake, in South Dakota. Ore assaying S20 in gold 
is very rich at Treadwell, Alaska, where 5000 tons of $2 ore is 
crushed daily, but it is relatively low-grade to the pocket- 
^ miner at Alleghany, in California. It is all a matter of com- 
parison; unless your reader knows your standards of depth, 
width, or richness, your 'very' has no significance. 

(1) "Where erosion was very rapid or oxidation very shallow" 
is a statement that immediately raises the question: What is 
the writer's scale of rapidity or shallowness? 

46 



SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 47 

(2) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle says: ''It is certain that the 
Germans were very outclassed upon the three days of June 
which I allude /o." 

The 'certain' and the 'very' suggest exaggeration. An 
adverb, such as 'greatly' has been omitted before "outclassed". 
He misplaced 'to'; for he meant "the three days in June to 
which I allude." 

The use of 'very' may defeat its purpose. Some words, 
like 'perfect' and 'unique', cannot be qualified. If a thing is 
'perfect', no 'very' can make it more so. To say that a machine 
"makes a very perfect separation of the slime from the sand" 
is tantamount to saying that it makes an 'almost perfect', 
which is an 'imperfect', separation. A perfect separation is 
100%, which is the limit of that kind of perfection. 

' Unique' is a word that allows no qualification. 

(3) "The manager of the Mount Boppy refers to one of 
the most unique sections of the mine." 

Here the superlatives smother each other. If several such 
"sections" existed in the mine, none of them was unique. 
The one first disclosed may have been unique; the second 
killed the uniqueness of it. 

(4) "A rather unique suggestion." 

(5) "The process is somewhat unique." 

If a thing be unique, that sufficeth. Similarly, such words 
as 'obvious', 'vertical', 'straight', 'moral', and 'honest' are not 
intensified by using an adverb; they are weakened. "A very 
vertical shaft" and "a perfectly straight adit" suggest the gild- 
ing of refined gold. 

(6) "Constructing a tramway in a perfectly straight fine." 
A straight fine is the perfection of straightness. 

(7) "It is very obvious that the mine is worth the price 
asked." 

It is obvious or it is not ; it can neither be more obvious nor 
almost obvious. From the unnecessary emphasis we may sus- 
pect that it was not obvious that the mine was worth the price. 

(8) "Guncotton is pressed into the requisite form in a wet 



48 TECHNICAL WRITING 

state, in which condition it is very safe to handle." The 'Very" 
weakens ''safe", because the over-emphasis raises a doubt. 

(9) "Lord Roberts is a very honest man" said the 'West- 
minster Gazette'. This suggests that perhaps poUtically his 
honesty was considered not above suspicion. 

(10) "Charles E. Hughes is exceedingly honest, extremely 
moral, but not in the least progressive" said 'The Examiner'. 
Here the superlatives sap the strength of the sentence, and 
reduce it to mere verbiage. 

(11) "The formation of the insoluble lime tungstate is 
very rare and has only been observed in one or two instances." 

This statement is weakened by false emphasis. "The 
formation of the insoluble lime-tungstate is rare." That 
suffices. 

These remarks do not refer to idiomatic phrases such as: 
"In very truth, he is a man." Idiomatic phrases are a law 
unto themselves. Here 'very' is an adjective; as also in "the 
very roots of human life". 'Very' makes a strong adjective, 
but a weak adverb. I will add this: if you employ 'very' 
infrequently, you will find it very useful, on occasion. 

Even a word like 'great' has little meaning if worked to 
death. A newspaper reporter, describing the submarine 
*Deutschland', said: 

(12) "The great hull has been pressed out of one sheet of 
steel. The only break in the smooth contour is at the bow 
where her great anchors hang. But even here it is hardly a 
break, for the anchors fit snugly into great pockets that still 
maintain the roundness of the hull. The conning tower rises 
like the hump of a camel in the great boat's back." 

'Most' is another word much over-worked and likely to 
hinder the flow of thought, as water is retarded by a riffle. 

(13) "The ore deposit is most extraordinary." 

(14) "This can be done most effectually in one way only." 
'Doubtless', 'without doubt', and 'undoubtedly' are inter- 
jected in a careless way as an equivalent for 'perhaps' or 
or 'probably', instead of being held to their true significance. 



SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 49 

(15) '' Doubtless the vein will persist in depth." 

(16) ''The men, without doubt, are honest in their inten- 
tions, but their methods are most objectionable." 

' Certain' is a word of uncertain meaning. 

(17) *'A certain kind of oil is necessary in the flotation 
process." 

Here 'certain' is used as a synonym for 'specific', but it would 
be better to specify what kind of oil is required. Delete 
'certain' and state whether it be pine-oil, wood-creosote, or 
olive-oil, for example. 

(18) "Tuberculosis occurs to a certain extent among the 
miners." 

In this example 'certain' either means nothing or it implies 
uncertainty. 

(19) "There is a tendency to limit the profit to a certain 
[fixed] percentage of the capital employed." 

Avoid the habitual use of 'certain', so that when you do 
employ it there will be no uncertainty as to your meaning. 

'Certainly', like its corresponding adjective, is another 
bluff word; more full of sound than significance. Here is a 
quotation from the New York 'Annalist' : 

(20) ''Certainly, Dr. Jastrow's article is stimulating to 
thought and can be read with interest by British bankers, 
remarks this authority. But one finds few to accept his con- 
clusions as a whole. Certainly American banking enterprise 
is finding an outlet in South America; certainly, also, America's 
new banking system should help New York to take an increas- 
ing share in international finance; certainly, also, British banks 
in South America will need all their skill and energy in the 
future." 

These four 'certainlys', one of which might be emphatic 
while the four cancel one another, are like the coughs of a 
self-conscious speaker. The addition, twice, of 'also' increases 
the clumsiness of the performance. 

'Considerable' is a woolly word, usually out of place in a 
technical statement. 



50 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(21) ^'Considerable [numerous] data of this kind are given 
by Lewis and Shorter " 

(22) "Considerable [deep] oxidation explains the absence 
of sulphides." 

(23) ''A considerable amount of ore was sent to custom- 
mills before the company built its own mill." 

Some, even approximate, figure should replace 'con- 
siderable', which depends for its value upon the writer's — not 
the reader's — notion of what is a large tonnage. 

(24) "The plans for a plant of any considerable magnitude 
are not warranted." 

Delete ''considerable" and substitute a phrase that is more 
specific. Is it the cost that is the obstacle or the lack of suf- 
ficient ore? Then write either "The plans for an expensive 
plant are not warranted by the funds available" or "The plans 
for a plant of large capacity are not warranted by the tonnage 
of ore assured." 

'Some', like 'considerable', is used in a loose, and usually 
meaningless, way. 

(25) "Scotland produced some 3,500,000 tons of oil-shale." 

(26) "This mine has yielded some 100,000 oz. of gold." 

(27) "This process has met with some considerable success 
in the treatment of antimonial gold ores." 

In each case 'some' is redundant; it means 'about' or 
'approximately', and that is suggested sufficiently by the 
round figures. The last quotation is so woolly in texture as 
to be ludicrous. 

' More or less' is another phrase it is well to discard in tech- 
nical writing, which aims to be precise. 

(28) "The ore has been subjected to more or less oxida- 
tion." 

(29) "The workmen are more or less inclined to resent the 
order." 

Delete 'more or less' in these examples. 

(30) "The application of more or less complicated formulas 
is superfluous." 



SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 51 

(31) ^'The impression that the bases of calculation are 
more or less certainties [certain]." 

' More or less' is rarely needed, least of all in a discussion of 
accurate methods of appraisal. 

(32) ''Leaving no record other than scanty ruins, rnore or 
less perfectly [now] entombed in the drifting sand-dunes." 

Do not imagine that the interlarding of qualifying phrases 
like 'more or less', 'to a greater or less extent', or even adverbs 
like 'about' and 'approximately', adds to the accuracy of your 
information or to the precision of your statement. 

(33) "Crystals penetrated to a greater or less extent the sub- 
stance of the rock fragments." 

(34) "The spaces between have been more or less completely 
filled by cementing materials." 

(35) "Ore-shoots are likely to be associated to a greater or 
less degree with fissures." 

These three quotations come from the same technical article 
by a geologist who mistook the decoration for the substance of 
scientific truth. 

'Probably', 'perhaps', 'about', and 'rather' are sprinkled 
in the sentences of engineers with the idea apparently of indi- 
cating carefulness of statement, but care is shown better by 
precision than by studied moderation of language. 

(36) "A sampling plant was built perhaps five years ago." 
Ascertain when it was built and give the date. 

(37) "The lode is probably about ten feet wide." 
Measure the lode and give its average wddth, as best you 

can. All such averages are subject to a reasonable discount; 
the insertion of 'probably' and 'about' will not avail if the 
average width of the lode prove to be six feet. 

(38) "The quartz is rather hard and the walls are very 
straight." Delete the words italicized. Likewise in the two 
following quotations: 

(39) "The movement of minerals shows a rather remarkable 
concentration." 

(40) "This is 7)wre especially true of the smaller veins." 



52 TECHNICAL WRITING 

'Present' and 'presence' are often redundant; so are 'found 
to be' and 'known to be'. 

(41) "The metallic minerals present in the ore." 

(42) " The presence of other sulphides was [were] noted in 
this ore." 

(43) "The sandstone is known to be jointed in places." 

(44) "In this region the deposits are found to be low-grade." 
In these four examples the words italicized are superfluous. 
'Et cetera' or 'etc' is improper after 'for example', or 'such 

as'. 

(45) "The ore contains various sulphides, such as galena, 
blende, pyrrhotite, etc.'' 

Delete "etc." and insert 'and' after "blende". 

(46) "After the copper sulphides, such as chalcocite and 
chalcopyrite, etc., are reduced to a fine state of comminution." 

The "etc." is not wanted. He had in mind these two sul- 
phides, and no others. The "etc." suggests that he had some- 
thing up his sleeve. 

This silly little abbreviation is also used to round a state- 
ment or to make it seem more inclusive, thus : 

(47) "Natives are employed in stoping, tramming, tim- 
bering, etc.'' 

(48) "Telluride ore is found in the Contention, Old Judge, 
Telegraph, Sarah Jane, etc." 

He had mentioned all the mines in which, so far as he knew, 
telluride ore had been found. The "etc." was a mere flourish. 
It reminds one of items in the social column of a local news- 
paper, such as: 

(49) "Mrs. Ebenezer J. Judkins gave an elegant dinner 
party, her guests being Mr. and Mrs. Algernon H. Smith, Mr. 
and Mrs. Adams Wheelock Brown, and others." No one else 
was present, but it sounded fine and large to add "and others". 

'However', 'therefore', 'nevertheless', 'moreover', and sim- 
ilar adverbial connectives should be used sparingly. They are 
better placed parenthetically within the sentence than at the 
beginning. 



SUPERLATIVES AND OTHER DILUENTS 53 

The British have a way of disarming criticism by using 
qualifying words and phrases hke 'somewhat', 'on the whole', 
'be this as it may', 'we venture to conclude'. Gracious as these 
may be in some forms of expression they should be excluded 
from technical writing, which is best when most explicit and 
least upholstered. 

(50) "The working costs have not been abnormally high, 
running, as they have done, only a trifle in excess of the average 
of the whole of the Witwatersrand." 

The statement is meant to disarm criticism by its gentle 
verbiage. 

(51) "A sampling plant was built perhaps five years ago." 

(52) "A somewhat important development is announced 
from El Oro." 

(53) "It is rather rare to see such a rich vein." 

This "orgy of moderation", as it has been called, is almost 
a disease among our British friends; it has grown from their 
love for "the emphasis of under-statement", as Thomas Hardy 
calls it. British technical writers appear to shy at plain state- 
ments of facts as if it were bad form to be explicit. This fault, 
however, is not unknown in America. The editor of the 
'Saturday Evening Post' says: 

(54) "That war, on the whole, lowers the morale of the 
personnel is possible." He tries to give dignity to a bit of piffle 
by inserting a qualifying phrase. 

(55) "The average run of ore contained about 30% sflica, 
more or less J ^ 

He must have been decidedly uncertain about it, for he 
protects his 30% both fore and aft. 

The secret of a vigorous style is the rejection of the super- 
fluous word. 

Permit me to quote Henry James again; he was addressing 
students — young women of the highest type — when he said: 
"I am asking you to take it from me, as the very moral of these 
remarks, that the way we say a thing, or fail to say it — fail to 
learn to say it — has an importance in life that it is impossible 



54 TECHNICAL WRITING 

to overstate — a far-reaching importance, as the very hinge of 
the relation of man to man." 

Henry James spoke thus ''in those days when his sentence 
was a straight young thing that could run where it liked, 
instead of a delicate creature swathed in relative clauses as an 
invalid in shawls."* 

* Rebecca West. 



VI. IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE. 

Freeman, the English historian, said that he had learned 
from Macaulay "never to be afraid of using the same word or 
name over and over again if by that means anything could be 
added to clearness or force. Macaulay never goes on, like 
some writers, talking about 'the former'-and 'the latter', 'he' 
'she', 'it', and 'they', through clause after clause, while his 
reader has to look back to see which of several persons it is that 
is so darkly referred to." He might have learned also from 
Macaulay that a preposition makes a feeble ending for a serious 
statement. 

How often do you hear 'the former' and 'the latter' in con- 
versation? Good conversation is a -guide not to be disdained. 
When you must use 'the latter', do not confuse it with 'the 
last'. 

(1) "Cheap labor, cheap fuel, and cheap transport are 
essential, the latter [last] being particularly important in base- 
metal mining." 

(2) "The apparatus may be used to determine such gases 
as h3^drogen sulphide, chlorine, oxides of nitrogen and some 
others, as well as sulphur di-oxide. In the case of the latter 
[last] two, etc." 

The last two mentioned are "sulphur di-oxide" and "some 
others". He should have stated which two and he should have 
avoided that jargonese phrase "in the case of". 

Sir Clifford Allbutt ridicules the false sense of tautology. 
As an example, he quotes : 

(3) "In the first series the reaction was present on 37 
occasions, in the second series it occurred 32 times, while in the 
third it was observed in 27 instances." 

This should be : "In the first series the reaction was observed 
37 times; in the second, 32 times; and in the third, 27 times." 

55 



56 TECHNICAL WRITING 

It might even be better to delete ''times" in the second and 
third clauses. 

Cobbett says: ''The word 'it' is the greatest troubler that 
I know of in language. It is so small and so convenient that 
few are careful enough in using it. Writers seldom spare the 
word. Whenever they are at a loss for either a nominative or 
an objective to their sentence, they clap in an it.^' 

(4) "The cartridge has fuse attached to it and it is split 
before it is shoved up." 

The first 'it' refers to the cartridge, the second to the fuse, 
and the third again to the cartridge. 

(5) "About two years ago, when it was found necessary 
io erect a new school-building, it was thought by many that 
some attempt should be made to give instruction to those 
engaged in mining. It was decided, therefore, to establish a 
mining-school in connection with the high-school and it proved 
a success." 

A medley of different 'its' in a single sentence, like the 
above, is undesirable; the mixture of the indefinite or imper- 
sonal 'it' (the first three in the example) with the concrete 'it' 
(the fourth, which appears to refer to the "mining-school") 
is confusing. The sentence is bad, not only because of this 
mixture, but because of the repetition of 'it'; the phrasing can 
be accepted as far as the word 'school-building', which might 
be followed by "many thought that some attempt should 
be made to give instruction to those engaged in mining. A 
mining-school therefore was established in connection with the 
high-school and proved successful." Such phrases as "it was 
found necessary" and "it was decided" are not objectionable, 
as expressing public necessity or public decision, but they should 
be used sparingly. 

(6) "The ore is scattered through the formation, and it is 
difficult to follow." 

Which was difficult to follow, the ore? the formation? If 
the ore, "it" is unnecessary; if the formation, "and it" should 
be replaced by 'which'. 



IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 57 

(7) "The air-compressor also operates the sinking-pump, 
so that it is an economical machine." 

Was it the pump or the compressor that proved economical? 

(8) "The fire at the Champion mine made it necessary for 
the company to shut-down its mill, and it is probable that it 
will remain idle for several months, until it is in a position to 
produce the usual supply of ore." 

Here are five 'its', three of which appear to represent con- 
crete things. Does the fourth refer to the company, the mill, 
or the mine? The fifth 'it' may refer either to the mine or to 
the company. As an alternative I suggest: 

"The fire at the Champion mine compelled the company 
to shut-down the mill, which will remain idle for several months 
or until sufficient ore can be supplied." 

(9) ''The thickness of the strata described as chalk by the 
driller is much greater in the southern field and it rests, in four 
cases out of five, directly on sand." 

What rests? "The southern field"? No, the chalk. The 
'and' can be replaced by 'where'; and 'chalk' had better be 
repeated instead of using the confusing 'it'. 

Do not hesitate to repeat a word in order to make yourself 
clear. Perspicuity is the better part of elegance. 

(10) "For reasons that need not be discussed, a solute that 
lowers the swr/ace- tension of a liquid concentrates at the sur- 
face of the solution, but this process of concentration, called 
'adsorption', takes a certain definite time to reach its full 
value. Now, if a film of the solution is stretched, a new surface 
is produced and this new surface at the moment of production 
possesses greater sur/ace-tension than the rest of the surface, 
because the sur/ace-adsorption has not had time to reach its 
full value." 

In this paragraph the writer has used the word 'surface' 
repeatedly in order to make himself clear. He is discussing a 
particular force, surface-tension, and avoids the risk of mis- 
understanding by giving it in full again and again. He might 
have used 'tension' without the adjectival 'surface' after 



5S TECHNICAL WRITING 

'' possesses greater", and he might have omitted 'surface' 
before 'adsorption' near the close of the paragraph; but if he 
erred, he erred on the right side. He is deahng throughout with 
essentially surficial phenomena and he emphasizes the fact. 
For that reason the repetition is to be commended. 

Please do not weigh the value of my admonitions entirely 
by the manner in which they are conveyed to you. I have 
read a sufficient number of books on grammar, composition, 
and writing tc know that the exponents of these subjects — 
some of them far better equipped than I — commit many of the 
errors against which they warn their readers. My position 
is much like that of the honest, but bibulous, clergyman who 
told his congregation: ''Do as I say, not as I do." 

An ungainly use of 'with' is noteworthy in technical writ- 
ings. 

(11) In preparing the second lecture I had written: " 'Cer- 
tain' is a word with an uncertain meaning", but I changed 
"with an" to 'of. 

(12) "The vein has a north-east strike with [and] an easterly 
dip." 

(13) "The vein becomes richer with [in] depth." 

(14) "The Bolivians produce good ore and concentrates 
with [at] a small outlay of expense." 

Here 'with' is more objectionable. The ore and concentrate 
are produced at a small cost. Delete "outlay of". 

(15) ''With the value of the boliviano as fixed by law, the 
difference of exchange becomes burdensome." 

This is worse. He should have said: "Since the value of 
the boliviano is fixed by law, the difference, etc." 

(16) "With the high smelting rate existing in England and 
the practical impossibility of getting ore into Germany for 
reduction, it seems that with fair offers in price the American 
smelters will be able to command a supply of tin ore from 
Bolivia." 

This is still worse. He means: " In consequence of the high 
smelting-rate etc.", and when he uses 'with' a second time he 



IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 59 

means that ^^if fair prices are offered, the American smelters 
should be able etc." 'Existing' and 'practical' are redundant. 

(17) ''Why are the ore-shoots limited to the middle andesite 
with [whereas] the earlier [lower] and upper flows [are] barren?" 

Here 'with' is used in place of 'whereas'. He might have 
said: "The lower and upper flows of andesite being barren, 
why are the ore-shoots limited to the middle flow?" 

(18) "The world's production of each of the three base 
metals was 1,000,000 tons with [but] lead slightly exceeding 
[exceeded] copper and zinc." 

The sense of equal production is better expressed by put- 
ting the "each" after "tons". He might have phrased the 
last clause thus: 

" but the production of lead slightly exceeded that of 

copper or zinc." 

(19) "Even with slimes that settle well with lime, this 
.nethod is undesirable." 

He means "This method cannot be recommended even when 
applied to slimes that are made to settle by aid of lime." 

(20) ''With a crushing device which utilizes the principle of 
abrasion peculiar phenomena are sometimes presented." 

This is jargon. He means: "Crushing devices that utilize 
the principle of abrasion sometimes produce peculiar phenom- 
ena." , 

(21) ''With the new furnaces in operation, smelting with 
the cheapest fuel available at present, with cheap power from 
waste gases, and with the Pierce-Smith convertor operating, 
the plant will be completely up to date." 

This is a sample of journalese. 'With' stands for 'when'. 

"When the new furnaces are in blast, when the Pierce- 
Smith convertors are in operation, when cheap fuel is used 
and when the waste-gases are utilized to generate power, this 
plant may be considered thoroughly up-to-date." 

(22) "With the exceptiori of [except for] the altitude, the 
conditions are favorable to mining." 

(23) "With [in consequence of] the rising cost of machinery, 



60 TECHNICAL WRITING 

foodstuffs, and labor, and with [as against] a fixed value for their 
output, the gold mines are facing unprecedented conditions." 

In the 13th book of the 'Say of Confucius' it is recorded: 
*'0n matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. 
If names are nob right, words are misused. When words are 
misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy 
and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and 
justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a 
gentleman must be ready to put names into speech, to put 
words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words." 

'While' means 'during the time that' or 'for as long as'. 
It is a mistake to use it for other purposes. 

(24) "The orebearing sandstones, which dip eastward, are 
locally termed 'vetas', while [whereas] those dipping eastward 
are known as 'ramos'." 

The reference is not to time but to the direction of dip. 
It is well when using foreign terms, such as the Spanish words 
in the above quotation, to insert the English equivalent in 
parentheses, thus 'vetas' (veins) and 'ramos' (branches). 

The same writer mixed his prepositions : 

(25) "These beds of sandstone have been found to contain 
ore at [to] a depth of over 1600 ft." 

He did not mean that they were ore-bearing only at 1600 
ft., but that they continued to be ore-bearing down to 1600 feet. 

(26) "Enormous quantities of agricultural waste from the 
farms are disregarded, while [although] they contain elements 
from which valuable substances can be derived." 

(27) "This refers to experiments where [in which] roasting 
was tried." 

Another objectionable mannerism is the use of the indefinite 
pronoun 'one'. This is distinctly a British habit, but man}- 
Americans affect it, and, being common among well-bred people, 
it has a vogue against which a careful writer should be on his 
guard. In technical writing it is a plain nuisance. 

(28) ''One dined late, therefore one did not walk to the club 
until ten o'clock ", instead of 



IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 61 

"I dined late, therefore I did not walk to the club until 
ten." 

(29) "I am engaged in reciting the incidents in one's [my] 
hfe." This is a panicky attempt to escape egotism in an 
autobiography. 

The 'Westminster Gazette' says: 

(30) ''Then cricket will become a sport without nerves, 
and one of which one will willingly become a spectator." 

Lord Rosebery remarks : 

(31) "The less 07ie says about a toast one knows nothing 
about the better for one's self and the audience." 

Note the preposition-verb and the misplaced preposition. 
J. L. Garvin wrote recently in 'The Journal' of the Institute 
of Journalists as follows : 

(32) "This you say is a talk by a journalist to journalists! 
So one had often declined. At last, in answer to the latest and 
most urgent invitation from French friends, one determined 
to go, and now the wonder seems that one did not go before." 

He means that he had often declined to visit the front in 
France, until at last he determined to go and then wondered 
why he had not gone before. Substitute 'I' for 'one' through- 
out. The statement is only interesting as referring to the 
ideas and movements of the speaker, the versatile editor of the 
'Observer'. 

(33) ''One had noticed that in Cornwall the miners had 
never been able to get rid of the influence of the smelters in 
selling their ore." 

Again the mock-modest 'one' is associated with a preposi- 
tion-verb. The observation is uninteresting unless backed by 
the personality of the observer. He might have said: 

"I had noticed that the miners in Cornwall had been unable 
to escape the dominance of the smelters." 

(34) "One used generally to prospect with a cocoa-nut 
shell, and when one wanted to try a piece of ground on a bigger 
scale the thing would be to take down a tree, beat the bark off, 
spread it out, and use that as a launder. One would follow this 



62 TECHNICAL WRITING 

by doing something else. One also came across very curious 
furnaces," and so forth. 

This is quoted from the Transactions of the Institution of 
Mining and Metallurgy. It is the rambhng description of a 
modest man, shrinking from being too downright and avoiding 
even the semblance of pedantic accuracy; hence the woolly 
texture of his verbiage. He was writing about prospecting in 
the Malay peninsula. His description has no scientific value 
unless it be the testimony of an eye-witness; being such, he 
ought to accept the responsibility and use the definitive 'I'. 

(35) "In 07ie instance one had anything but a positive 
discharge and a positive feed, whilst in the other, one had both 
of these points absolutely defined." 

Note again the clash between the numeral one and the 
pronoun one. This quotation, referring to heavy stamps, is 
also from the Transactions of the premier mining-engineering 
society of England. Part of the wearisome use of one is due to 
the custom of reporting in the third person — the or alio obliqua. 
This is objectionable in matters of scientific testimony. A 
record in the first person is safer and more intelligible. 

The American uses 'they' as an indefinite pronoun, as if to 
compensate for abstaining from the use of 'one' a VAnglaise. 

(36) "It took thirty years to introduce oil flotation and 
they are now erecting a monument to the memory of the woman 
who [that] first discovered the process." 

'They' stands for the pubhc or those interested in mining. 
'First' is redundant. 

To return to our indefinite pronoun: a technical writer is a 
scientific witness; his testimony is valuable because he vouches 
for the accuracy of it; if he hide his identity under the mock- 
modesty of the indefinite pronoun he contravenes the purpose 
that is supposed to prompt his utterance. To begin a statement 
in the first person may seem assertive, but it simply asserts 
the responsibility of the writer, identifies the witness, and 
places him on record as testifying to the fact. To begin with 
'one' is to start under a cloud of impersonality, to evade respon- 



IT, ONE, WITH, WHILE 63 

sibillty, and to pose as a nebulous nonentity. In technology 
it is necessary to sacrifice elegance to precision; the writer 
on technical subjects is expected, not to pose, but to speak 
to the point without wasteful circumlocution or mincing 
affectation. 

Some people seem to consider the first person positively 
indecent — they shun it. Of course, unnecessary egotism is 
objectionable, and the needless repetition of 'I' is a fault, but 
the intrusion of self into a matter that is personal, as testimony 
must be, does not come under the ban of good taste. On the 
other hand, the indefinite pronoun has its use, of course, when 
one desires to be impersonal. Thus "One may well be afraid 
when the lions roar" is a pleasant way of expressing the idea 
of fear without attributing timidity to any person in particular. 
"One is loath to impugn the President's motives" is a proper 
way of suggesting more than an individual questioning of his 
motives. Likewise when one is generalizing, the introduction 
of the ego may be unnecessary or even annoying; thus: "The 
training of mining men has usually been so broad that I find 
[one finds] them at home in almost any branch of military 
engineering." However, in technology the need of 'one' in 
such contexts does not arise often. 

I have criticized two Britishisms, not out of ill-will, but for 
a definite purpose, and I have referred to one or two American- 
isms in exactly the same spirit. To my mind Britishisms and 
Americanisms are equally objectionable; they are provin- 
cialisms detrimental to the currency of the English language, 
which is the common heritage of both peoples. The official 
language of the United States, a language that originated in 
Great Britain, is spoken in the same way by those who speak 
it well on both sides of the Atlantic. I can assure you that Mr. 
Eliot and Mr. Choate, for example, speak exactly the same 
language as Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour; and if any of us 
speak or write differently from them, we may be using British 
or we may be using American, but we are not using English. 



VII. THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS. 

An educated man is distinguished from others neither by 
his clothes nor by his knowledge; he is remarkable not for the 
things he says, but for the way he says them. You cannot 
even stand with him under an archway in the rain without 
finding him out. He may talk only of the weather. His words 
and his phrases alike may be simple. What distinguishes him 
is the arrangement of his words; however desultory his talk, 
it will be methodical; he has habituated himself to foreseeing 
the part to be played by each word he uses, and the place to 
be taken by each sentence he utters. On the other hand, the 
uneducated man, though shrewd and well-informed, will relate 
facts and events as they recur to him, generally in disorder; 
in his effort to recollect and in his attempt to rectify forget- 
fulness, he will pause irregularly, filling the intervals with 
meaningless phrases, such as ''and then", ''and so", or "said 
h(^ to me", "said I to him", and even the continuous parts of 
his story will be told confusedly, because he has not learned the 
proper use of words.* 

My own experience as an editor of technical manuscript 
has taught me that ignorance of the proper uses of 'that' and 
'which' is a fruitful cause of obscurity and confusion. The 
relative pronouns have distinct functions, and no writer can 
express himself clearly until he has learned to discriminate 
between these functions. 

(1) "The company is about to erect a leaching-plant for 
the silver-tin concentrate which did not find a remunerative 
market either in England or Germany." 

'Concentrate that' would mean only the particular portion 
for which a remunerative market was not found. 
* Borrowed, and changed, from Coleridge. 
64 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 65 

'Concentrate, which' would mean all the silver-tin con- 
centrate. 

' Concentrate which' could have either meaning. 

(2) (a) ''The engineers that refused to submit were dis- 
charged." 

(6) ''The engineers, who refused to submit, were dis- 
charged." 

The first means that only a few recalcitrant engineers were 
dismissed, whereas the second means that all the engineers 
were recalcitrant and all of them were dismissed. 

(3) "The Trail smelter is treating ore from the Sunshine 
mine at a profit which runs only $6.10 per ton." 

Is the profit $6.10? No; for that would be ample, and 
would render 'only' superfluous. It is the ore that assays only 
$6.10 per ton. Substitute 'that' for 'which' and the meaning 
becomes clear. At the same time re-arrange the sentence thus: 

"The Trail smelter is treating, at a profit, ore from the 
Sunshine mine that assays only $6.10 per ton." 

The clause "at a profit" may seem to be interjected awk- 
wardly, but it is placed where it will be emphatic, as it should 
be. 'Profitably' might be substituted. 

(4) "All the ore from the lower level that is not now under 
water is being sent to the mill." 

What is under water? The lower level? or only a part of 
the ore on the lower level? If the lower level is meant, 'which' 
should replace 'that' and two commas are needed to complete 
the relative clause, thus: 

"All the ore from the lower level, which is not now under 
water, is being sent to the mill." 

The dangers of punctuation can be lessened by writing: 
"Since the lower level is not now under water, all the ore from 
it is being sent to the mill." 

If a part of the lower level is under water the sentence should 
read: 

"All the ore from the part of the lower level that is not 
under water is being sent to the mill." 



66 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(5) ''I recommend the flotation process that has been 
developed so successfully in Australia for the treatment of 
the ore at Miami." 

He does not say what he means. He recommends the 
flotation process in general and intends to remark incidentally 
that it has been developed successfully elsewhere; he is not 
recommending a particular flotation process noteworthy as 
having been developed in Australia. He can express his mean- 
ing clearly by changing 'that' into 'which' and by placing a 
comma before 'which' and after 'Australia'. It will be better 
to re-arrange the sentence thus: 

"For the treatment of the ore at Miami, I recommend the 
flotation process, which has been developed so successfully in 
Australia." 

The relative pronouns serve for reference and connection. 
^Who', its possessive 'whose', and its objective 'whom' should 
properly refer to living things, usually persons, sometimes 
animals. By poetic license we may speak of "the city whose 
future is assured". But it is inadvisable to say : "The smelter 
whose operations are profitable". Poetic hcense is not permis- 
sible in technology. So we may say: "The smelter, which 
is operating at a profit, continues to produce the usual quantity 
of bullion." 

Historically Svhose' is the possessive of 'what' as well as of 
'who', and it is still used as equivalent to 'of which', par- 
ticularly when the latter produces an awkward construction.. 
Hill states the rule* thus: 

" 'Whose' is used of anything with animal life or of anything 
personified; 'of which' is used of anything without animal 
life, unless euphony requires 'whose'." He suggests that it 
sounds better to say : 

(6) "The Lilliputians ask Gulliver to destroy the nation 
whose ships he had already taken" than 

"The Lilliputians ask Gulliver to destroy the nation of 
which he had already taken the ships." 

* 'Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition', by A. S. Hill, p. 729. 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 67 

Yet Professor Hill approves 

(7) ''A lady inquired if a monthly magazine, the name of 
which was unknown to me, had yet arrived." 

Preferring this to 

'^A lady inquired if a monthly magazine, whose name was 
unknown to me, had yet arrived." 
Shakespeare says in familiar hues: 

(8) ''The undiscovered country from whose bourn 

No traveler returns" 
But, as I have already suggested, the usage of poetry should 
not be imitated in prose, least of all in technical writing, in 
which precision is imperative. 

'Which' is not inflected; it refers usually to things only, 
not to persons. 'That' also is not inflected; it refers to both 
persons and things; it cannot be modified directly by a prepo- 
sition. We do not say "The man in that we trusted", although 
colloquially we may say: "The man that we trusted in" — 
an awkward clause. To 'trust' a man and 'to put your trust 
in' a man express different shades of meaning. Therefore we 
decide to say "The man in whom we trusted", or, simply, 
"The man we trusted". Likewise we would not say "the 
house in that Holmes was born", nor would we care to say 
"the house that Holmes was born in", but "the house in which 
Holmes was born". Thus good usage leans to the side of 
euphony. 

The use of 'that' for referring to persons is considered old- 
\/ fashioned by many, even incorrect by some. Webster's dic- 
tionary defines a 'director' as "one that directs". The Century 
dictionary says "one who directs". My own experience leads 
me to agree with Webster. Here 'one' stands for 'the kind of 
person' ; it is specific, not general. I would say 

(9) "The man that said so is worthy of respect", and not 
"The man who said so, etc." 

As we shall see later, 'that' should introduce a definitive 
clause. It is generally conceded to be required when a superla- 
tive is attached to the antecedent : 



68 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(10) ''The most careful man that I could find." 
"He was the greatest geologist that ever lived." 

'That' is also preferred with a word of exclusive or com- 
prehensive meaning, such as 'only' or 'any'. Thus: 

(11) "The only mineral that I recognized." 
"Anybody that goes this way is in danger." 

The use of 'and which' presents another difficulty to young 
writers — and old ones too. This phrase should not be employed 
unless it is preceded by another subordinate clause introduced 
by 'which'. It is correct to say: 

(12) "He went to the Hercules mine, which he examined 
and which he hopes to buy." 

It is not proper to say: 

(13) "This is the kind of cyanide I prefer, ana which I 
expect to use in the mill." 

Here 'which' should be deleted, and 'it' inserted after 'use'. 
An alternative would be to delete 'which' and the second 'I', 
as well as the comma, thus: "This is the kind of cyanide I 
prefer and expect to use in the mill." 

(14) "It may be possible to operate profitably a small 
plant using shale conveniently situated ajid which can be 
mined at a low cost." 

"It may be possible to operate profitably a small plant if 
it is supplied from a deposit of shale so situated as to be mined 
cheaply." 

The chief difficulty is to discriminate between the use of 
'that' on the one hand and of 'who' or 'which' on the other. 
Most writers seem to consider 'that' and 'which' interchange- 
able; therefore they employ 'that' as an agreeable variant of 
'which', and get into trouble. Since 'that' also plays the 
part of a conjunction, an adverb, and a demonstrative pro- 
noun, they prefer 'which' to 'that' when choice appears per- 
missible. 

I shall take special pains to discuss the uses of 'that' and 
'which' because my own experience has caused me to appre- 
ciate keenly how necessary it is to have a thorough under- 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 69 

standing of the distinctive functions of these pronouns. The 
main distinction is this: 

The function of 'that' is to define and to restrict; 
the function of ' which' is to explain and to supplement. 

At this point I am in honor bound to inform you that 
several authorities hold a different opinion; but I must add 
emphatically that in the course of my work as an editor of 
technical manuscript, and in revising my own writing, I have 
been impressed by the fact that the observance of this rule, 
regulating the use of 'that' and 'which', tends to clearness of 
expression. 

(15) "This is the house that Jack built." 

The words 'that Jack built' restrict or limit the meaning 
of 'house'; the sense is not complete without them; therefore 
'that' is the pronoun to be used here, in accordance with the 
general rule that if the relative clause is clearly essential to the 
meaning of the statement — that is, if it limit or define the ante- 
cedent noun — 'that' should be used, and not 'which' or 'who'. 

Another familiar example of the restrictive use of the pro- 
noun 'that' is furnished by 

(16) "The man that has plenty of good peanuts." 

On the other hand, the supplementary or explanatory clause 
requires 'which'; for example: 

(17) "Dogs, which of all animals are most friendly to man, 
sometimes bite their masters." 

(18) "Houses, which are made to live in, should be built 
with a view to comfort." 

In these examples the relative clauses have a logical relation 
to the principal statement; they are explanatory and supple- 
mentary to that statement. 

(19) "The mill, which was quite new, was destroyed by 
the snow-slide." 

Here 'which' introduces a secondary statement, supple- 
mentary to the main one, which asserts the principal fact con- 
cerning the destruction of the mill. If 'that' had been used, 
the idea conveyed would be that one mill out of several, namely, 



70 TECHNICAL WRITING 

the newest of them, had been destroyed. Here 'which' is cor- 
rect. The commas mark the beginning and the end of the inter- 
jected clause. 

Relative clauses, as I have said, are divisible into 'defining' 
and 'non-defining'. The function of the defining clause is 
to limit the antecedent, which is the noun or clause to which 
the relative pronoun refers; it may express lirnitation in 
several ways; but whichever way it may perform its work, it 
is essential to and inseparable from the antecedent. 

(20) "A process that will extract both metals will be 
adopted." 

Here the clause "will extract both metals" is introduced 
by 'that' because it defines "the process". Remove the 
defining clause ("that will extract both metals") and nothing 
remains; to say "a process will be adopted" means nothing. 

(21) "The process, which is of recent invention, extracts 
both the gold and the silver at a low cost." 

Here the clause "is of recent invention", introduced by 
'which', is non-defining; it is a bit of incidental information 
and can be omitted without affecting the principal statement 
concerning the extraction of "both the gold and the silver at a 
low cost". 

(22) "The flotation process which is no longer in the experi- 
mental stage can be applied to an ore of this kind." 

Here the clause introduced by 'which' can be lifted without 
spoiling the sense, because it merely introduces supplementary 
information. Commas should be used before 'which' and after 
'stage'; otherwise the sentence is unorganized. 

The best test for distinguishing between the two kinds of 
relative clauses is essentiality. The non-defining clause may 
serve in a measure to define or to limit by reason of its descriptive 
nature; so also the defining clause may contribute toward com- 
ment or explanation ; but the test of being essential can be met 
only by the defining clause; the information given by it must 
be taken at once, or both it and its antecedent are useless.* 
* Sec 'The King's English'; p. 79. 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 71 

A simple rule for the use of 'that' and Svhich' is given by 
Alexander Bain, and commended by Edwin A. Abbott in his 
little guide-book, 'How to Write Clearly'. The rule is: ''When 
using the relative pronoun, use 'who' and 'which' where the 
meaning is 'and he', and 'and it', etc., 'for he', 'for it', etc. 
In other cases, use 'that' if euphony allows." Thus: 

(23) "I heard this from the mine manager, who [and he] 
heard it from the man that was in charge of the work." 

In this example 'that' cannot be replaced by 'and he', but 
the 'who' can. The clause following 'who' is continuative and 
supplementary, but the clause following 'that' is distinctly 
restrictive; it defines. 

Abbott also says: " 'Who' and 'which' introduce a new 
fact about the antecedent, whereas 'that' introduces something 
without which the antecedent is incomplete or undefined." 
Thus, in the above example, "I heard it from the mine man- 
ager" is a complete statement; 'who' introduces additional 
information concerning him, namely, his having heard about 
"this" from another man; but the phrase beginning with "the 
man" is incomplete without the distinguishing clause "that 
was in charge of the work". 

Here is another good example: 

(24) "I met the boatman who took me across the ferry." 

If this should imply, "I met the boatman and he took me 
across the ferry", then a comma ought to precede the 'who' 
introducing the continuative clause, but if I am referring to 
the particular boatman by whose help I had crossed, I ought to 
say: 

"I met the boatman that took me across the ferry." 
Hodgson makes a similar distinction; he says that 'who' 
and 'which' should connect two co-ordinate sentences, whereas 
'that' should be restrictive, limiting, and defining. Thus: 
"Margaret Finch, who died in 1740, was 109 years old" may 
be divided into two co-ordinate clauses, accordingly : " Margaret 
Finch died in 1740, and was 109 years old." But "Blessings 
on the man that invented sleep" can no more be resolved into 



72 TECHNICAL WRITING 

two sentences than can ''Blessed be the inventor of sleep''. 
The use of 'who' without a comma as in "Blessings on the man 
who invented sleep" is saved by the continuation of the sense. 

Let me suggest another simple test: a clause introduced by 
'who' or 'which' usually should be set off by commas. Correct 
punctuation indicates that the clause is supplementary. If 
the commas spoil the sense, 'that' should be substituted or the 
sentence should be re-written. Again, 'who' or 'which' usually 
refers to the word immediately preceding, but 'that' may 
throw the reference back to a word or an idea earlier in the 
statement. Thus: 

"The Trail smelter is treating ore from the Sunshine mine 
that assays only $6.10 per ton." 

The assay refers to 'ore', not 'mine.' 

(25) "A party of soldiers from Camp Douglas were [was] 
guarding some horses belonging to the garrison which [that] 
had been sent to graze in Bingham canyon." 

So writes a historian. It was the 'horses', not the 'garri- 
son', that had been sent to graze, and the use of the correct 
pronoun makes this clear. 

(26) "I quote from Sir J. J. Thomson's 'Discharge of 
Electricity through Gases', who made a thorough investigation." 

The 'who', coming after the name of the treatise, fails to 
throw the reference back to Thomson. A re-arrangement is 
required, thus: 

"I quote from 'Discharge of Electricity through Gases' 
by Sir J. J. Thomson, who made a thorough investigation." 

(27) "The defunct American Bank of Alaska, at Fairbanks, 
owns a number of claims on this creek, which fell into its hands 
for money loaned." 

If the creek fell into its hands, as is asserted, the stocks held 
by the bank must have been much watered. The 'which', 
being preceded by the comma, ties the reference to the imme- 
diately preceding word 'creek', although the reference should 
be thrown back to 'claims'. Substitute 'that' for 'which' and 
delete the comma. 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 73 

(28) "Resolved, that drinking places, which are haunts of 
vice, are dangerous and should be eliminated." 

This resolution was submitted at a brewers' convention. 
They did not mean that all public drinking-places were ''haunts 
of vice". They meant to ''eliminate" only such drinking-places 
as were haunts of vice. The clause was meant to be restrictive, 
but the substitution of 'which' for 'that' made it continuative. 

In describing plant or machinery, which consists of a 
number of correlated parts; likewise in describing a process, 
which consists of inter-dependent operations, it is necessary 
to define, to specify the part played by each member of the 
series, and to make clear the relation of one to the other. In 
order to accomplish this purpose, the relative pronouns must 
be used discriminatingly. For example, in describing a mill 
for concentrating copper ore: 

(29) "The rolls discharge into a wire screen, the mesh being 
varied from 1 to IJ in. according to the proportion of moisture, 
which ranges from 5 to 13%. The undersize is carried to the 
conveyor that serves the preceding screen, while the oversize 
goes to an elevator which takes it to a fourth set of screens, 
similarly adjusted." 

The 'that' serves to introduce a defining clause essential 
to the description. The first 'which' introduces a secondary 
item of information. The second 'which', after 'elevator', 
is equivalent to 'and it' ; the clause is continuative. 

Here is the description of a filter for de-watering con- 
centrate : 

(30) "It consists of a revolving drum on which is stretched 
a porous medium of canvas that is immersed in the concentrate 
during a part of the revolution, the concentrate being drawn 
to the canvas by the action of a vacuum induced within the 
drum so as to suck the pulp, which, becoming de-watered, is 
detached by compressed air, releasing the vacuum." 

The immersion of the canvas is essential. The 'which' can 
be replaced by 'and it'. 

jMany of our best writers and speakers ignore the distinction 



74 TECHNICAL WRITING 

between 'that' and Svhich', deeming it a matter of euphony 
only. In consequence, they fail to express themselves clearly. 
In a speech of international importance, Mr. Lloyd George, 
the British Premier, said: 

(31) ''Nor are we fighting to destroy Austria-Hungary or 
to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned 
lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which are predominantly 
Turkish in race." 

This means that the Allies are not fighting to deprive 
Turkey of Asia Minor and Thrace. Mr. George appears to 
give the supplementary information that these two regions are 
"predominantly Turkish in race". What he means to say is 
that the Allies are not fighting to deprive Turkey of the Asiatic 
and Thracian lands that are predominantly Turkish in race, 
such as Turkey proper and Anatolia, but they do expect to 
end Turkish misrule in Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, 
and Palestine. 

President Wilson is a skilful writer, and he appears to appre- 
ciate the defining function of 'that' most of the time, but not 
always : 

(32) "The German government denies the right of neutrals 
to use arms at all within the areas of the sea irhich [that] it has 
prescribed, even in the defence of rights ivhich [that] no modern 
publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend." 

In the above quotation, both of the clauses introduced by 
'which' restrict and define, therefore 'that' is preferable. It 
makes the statement clearer and stronger. 

The Council of National Defense is responsible for the fol- 
lowing : 

(33) "If you do not own a smelter, may we ask you to 
instruct the smelter ivhich [that] smelts your ores to furnish 
one-sixth of the lead-content of the ore which [that] it accepts 
from you in July on the Government order and notify them 
that you will accept in settlement for that amount of lead in 
your ore the price that the Government is paying." 

The first 'which' should be replaced by 'that' because it 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 75 

introduces a restrictive clause; so also the second 'which', for 
the same reason. The first 'that' in the quotation is a con- 
junction, the second is a demonstrative pronoun, and the 
third is a relative pronoun (used this time correctly, instead of 
'which') introducing a defining clause. Each 'that' is employed 
correctly, but they are crowded unhappily. The entire state- 
ment is infelicitous. The word 'smelter' is used first to signify 
a metallurgical plant and then to signify the manager or the 
owner of such a plant. To whom does 'them' refer? Pre- 
sumably the owners of the smelting plant. 

(34) "They could take anything in Russia, which they con- 
sidered worth the trouble. The Russians can never drive them 
out of the vast stretches of Russian territory which they now 
occupy." 'The New Republic'. 

Delete the comma before the first 'which' and substitute a 
'that'. The second 'which' is not needed. 
John Graham Brooks says: 

(35) "One of the most careful of our critics who studied 
us for three years felt this danger." 

How many of these critics studied us for three years? 
'Who' can be replaced by 'and he'. The sentence can be better 
organized, thus: "A most careful critic, who studied us for 
three years, felt this danger." 

Sidney Colvin, in the 'Introduction' to 'The Letters of 
Robert Louis Stevenson', says: 

(36) "Once more, it may be questioned whether among the 
many varieties of work which [that] Stevenson has left, all 
touched with genius, all charming and stimulating to the 
literary sense, all distinguished by a grace and precision of 
workmanship which are the rarest qualities in English art, 
there are any which [that] can be pointed to as absolute master- 
pieces, such as the future cannot be expected to let die.'^ 

The "precision of workmanship" of Stevenson's literary 
executor suffers, I think, by the use, twice, of 'which' for 
'that', because in each case the pronoun introduces a defining 
clause. The second 'which' is correct. 



76 TECHNICAL WRITING 

In contrast, permit me to quote an eloquent and informing 
sentence by Charles M. Gayley, who, in 'Shakespeare and 
The Founders of Liberty in America', describes Richard 
Hooker thus: 

(37) ''In Sandys and Shakespeare we recognize the religious 
ideal of freedom tempered by reverence, the political ideal of 
liberty regulated by law and conserved by delegated authority, 
the moderation, tolerance of divergent opinion, the broad and 
sympathetic confidence in progress rather than in rigidity or 
finality, that are characteristic of the most philosophical writer 
upon politics, the broadest minded, most learned, and most 
eloquent divine of sixteenth-century England." 

Note how the five antecedent clauses are introduced by 
'that' so as to accentuate the completeness of the description. 
This fine utterance would have been wrecked by the use of 
'which', weakening the keystone of this symmetrical Uterary 
arch to the memory of the great philosopher of the Shake- 
spearian epoch. 

There is an exception to every rule. Your comprehension 
of a rule will be tested by recognizing the exception, for it is 
then that you learn how to follow the spirit of the rule intelli- 
gently, not mechanically. 'That' is not available for all 
restrictive clauses, for in some of them the conjunction 'that' 
may lead to an awkward repetition of the word. For instance, 

(38) "He said that he had examined a mine in the Leadville 
district which is in a position to furnish large quantities of 
manganese." 

'Which' should be replaced by 'that'; in consequence, the 
conjunction 'that' would be too near the pronoun 'that'. This 
would be awkward. Delete the first 'that', because it will be 
understood; also re-cast the introductory clause thus: "He 
spoke of having examined a mine, etc." 

Whenever a sentence appears doubtful in the light of any 
rule, it is probable that the sentence, not the rule, needs 
changing. When in doubt, re-build the sentence. 

(39) "Jones, who was one of the men whoin [that] I brought 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 77 

from Colorado, would not leave his work, which ensured the 
completion of the job which [that] I had much at heart." 

The Vhom' and the second Vhich' can be deleted, and the 
latter half of the statement changed, thus : 

''Jones, who was one of the men I brought from Colorado, 
would not leave his work; thus his fidelity ensured the com- 
pletion of a job I had much at heart." 

(40) ''A pipe-line therefore is laid down the shafts, which 
carry water to sprays set under the timbers." 

This refers to protection from fire underground. The 
'shafts' do not "carry water to the sprays"; the reference is to 
the 'pipe-lines'. The relative pronoun is not required. 

"A pipe-line therefore is laid down each shaft, to carry water 
for sprays set under the timbers." 

(41) "In the mountains of the State there are hidden 
rare minerals, besides gold, copper, and silver, which are able 
to produce some of the metals most needed in the iron and steel 
industries." 

The 'which' refers to 'rare minerals', not to 'gold, copper, 
and silver'. 

"In the mountains of the State are to be found not only 
ores of gold, silver, and copper, but also minerals that might 
yield some of the rare metals needed in the iron and steel 
industry." 

(42) "There were very few miners, who escaped without 
serious injury." 

This might be resolved into "and all escaped", whereas if 
'that' had been used, without the comma, the truth would 
have been stated, namely, "Almost all the miners were seri- 
ously injured" or "Only a few miners escaped serious injury". 

The foregoing examples serve to illustrate the advantage 
to be gained by re-writing an awkward or ambiguous sentence. 
A doubtful meaning is worse than a grammatical error. Do 
not hesitate to re-build the sentence if it seem unsafe. 

(43) "Hoisting was done through the centre compartment 
only, by means of two 15j-cu. ft. buckets used alternately 



78 TECHNICAL WRITING 

and dumped automatically on top into the car by means of a 
chain hung from the head-frame which was hooked into a 
ring on the bottom of the bucket holding the bottom stationary 
and allowing it to tip on an incline-door and chute, thereby 
discharging its contents." 

The head-frame was not hooked to the bottom of the 
bucket! 'Which' refers to the chain. Splitting into two sen- 
tences and proper punctuation will clarify the meaning, thus: 

"Hoisting was done through the central compartment only, 
by means of two 15|-cu. ft. buckets, which were used alter- 
nately and dumped automatically at the surface into a car 
by means of a chain hanging from the head-frame. This 
chain was hooked to a ring on the bottom of the bucket so as 
to hold it stationary while it was being discharged upon an 
incline-door and chute." 

Here 'which' introduces a supplementary statement, fol- 
lowed by further information. 

(44) "The road vibration alone will loosen nuts and 
rivets, which if not attended to in time will cause serious 
trouble." 

The road does not vibrate; it is the motor-truck, to which 
the statement refers, that vibrates. The 'which' does not refer 
to 'rivets' but to 'loosen'. Re-cast the entire statement, and 
avoid the preposition-verb 'attended to', thus: 

"The vibration of the truck while on the road will loosen 
the nuts and rivets; and this, if neglected, will cause serious 
trouble." 

The last example again serves to show that it is best not to 
tinker with a bad sentence, but to re-write it. By so doing you 
not only make a useful correction, but you learn to improve 
your composition. Mistakes, when corrrected, become stepping- 
stones to the attainment of skill in writing, as in life generally. 

It may seem that I have laid excessive stress on the dis- 
tinction between the relative pronouns, particularly as it must 
be granted that the practice of reputable authors is indis- 
criminate. So good a teacher as Professor Hill says that "in 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 79 

this matter the ear is a surer guide than any theory'^, and he 
imputes the use of 'that' in such, hues as 

(45) ''Hearts that once beat high for praise" (Moore) 
"Thoughts that breathe and words that burn" (Gray) 

not to any grammatical theory but to euphony, because 
'' 'that', following without intervening pause a plural noun 
ending in 's', is easier to speak and more agreeable to hear than 
'which' would be".* But to this I must demur; the 'thats' 
in these quotations are doing their duty. Sense should not be 
sacrificed to euphony, particularly in technical writing, in 
which grace of diction is frankly subordinated to clearness and 
precision. Take the following example: 

(46) "The company will erect a plant to treat the residues 
that were not saleable during the War." 

The 'that' — let us suppose — is used for the sake of euphony, 
to avoid collision between 'which' and the final 's' in 'residues'. 
The statement now means that a plant is to be erected for the 
treatment only of such residues as were unsaleable during the 
War, whereas the writer meant to say, and would have said 
it if he had used 'which', with a comma, that all the residues 
were unsaleable and were to be treated locally in the company's 
new plant. 

James P. Kelleyf quotes Hill as having defined 'ease' as 
the "quality which makes language agreeable", but on the 
next page he himself writes : " ' The quality that makes language 
agreeable' manifests itself in many ways." He adds: "The 
writer who goes to work to exhibit the pleasing features of 
his style is on dangerous ground; let him beware lest he violate 
the first prijQciple of ease." It was to 'ease' perhaps that he 
sacrificed the 'that' after "writer", and to euphony that we 
owe his use of it in the next quotation, given herewith : 

(47) "He ^to doesn't care will never learn to write; and he 
that cares will 'take suggestion as a cat laps milk'." "He who" 
repeated would suggest the braying of an ass. 

* A. S. Hill, Op. cit. Page 126. 

t In 'Workmanship in Words', a stimulating textbook. 



80 TECHNICAL WRITING 

No; euphony is too uncertain a guide for the technical 
writer; it may cajole him into ambiguities not to be risked in 
the serious work he has in hand. He is more likely to attain 
clearness of style if he will make up his mind whether he 
intends to define or to comment, using 'that' for the first 
purpose, and 'who' or Svhich', with commas to set off the com- 
menting clause, for the second purpose. 

It may be argued that because the great masters of our 
language are inconsistent in their use of 'that' and 'which', 
therefore it is not for technical writers to attempt to make 
the distinction. I think it is, if we can increase the clearness of 
our expression thereby „ For instance, Ruskin says: "Out of 
the infinite heap of things around us in the world, human 
invention^ chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly 
grasp, and presents this group to the spectator in the form best 
calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with 
delight." This is the writing of a past-master, yet, I suggest, 
* 'which" introduces a defining clause and therefore should give 
place to 'that'. He is explaining how human invention chooses 
a small number of things out of a heap of things, and it chooses 
to select the particular things it can grasp thoroughly; there- 
fore 'that' is preferable; it expresses the meaning more clearly 
than 'which'. Let it be noted, moreover, how Ruskin avoids 
the unnecessary 'thats' and 'whiches', as, for example, in the 
introductory sentence in the above quotation, where he might 
have written: "Out of the infinite heap of things that are 
around us in the world". Most of us use these relative pro- 
nouns too much, creating needless difficulties for ourselves. 
I am tempted to quote Ruskin further, partly because the 
quotations are delightful in themselves, but mainly to show how 
his indifference to the distinction betvveen 'that' and 'which' 
is a defect in his splendid writing. I shall quote from the 
fourth volume of 'Modern Painters' because it deals with 
geology. He speaks of the motion given to water by the moun- 
tains : 

(48) " Every fountain and river, from the inch-deep stream- 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 81 

let that crosses the village lane in tumbling clearness, to the 
massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters 
in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, 
to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, 
extended or abrupt, some determined slope of the earth's sur- 
face is of course necessary, before any wave can so much as 
overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage; and how seldom do we 
enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant 
brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which 
every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a per- 
petual sign; that the dew and rain fallen on the face of the 
earth shall find no resting-place; shall find, on the contrary, 
fixed channels traced for them, from the ravines of the central 
crests down which they roar in sudden ranks of foam, to the 
dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture, round which 
they must circle slowly among the stems and beneath the 
leaves of the lilies; paths prepared for them, by which, at some 
appointed rate of journey, they must evermore descend, some- 
times slow and sometimes swift, but never pausing; the daily 
portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for them 
at each successive sunrise, the place which has known them 
knowing them no more, and the gateways of the guarding 
mountains opened to them in cleft and chasm, none letting 
them in their pilgrimage; and, from far off, the great heart of 
the sea calling them to itself!" 

He uses 'that' twice to introduce a restrictive clause, but he 
also uses one 'which' for a precisely similar purpose. Is it not 
preferable to say, ''the place that has known them"? The "of 
course" is a blemish; the statement in which it appears is no 
more self-evident than many others in the same paragraph; 
it mars the dignity of the diction. Delete the "of course" 
and the comma after "necessary". Note how skilfully he uses 
"down which", "round which", and "by which", in sequence, 
to describe the course of the water. Note also the effectiveness 
of the two 'ands', in "their play, and purity, and power", to 
emphasize the manifold consequences of nature's ordinance; 



82 TECHNICAL WRITING 

but he uses too many 'ands', for instance, the one before ''how 
seldom", where he joins two separate ideas. 

Here is another fine passage to show the use of these trouble- 
some pronouns. He is speaking of the beauty of the district 
between Valorsine and Martigny. 

(49) ''The paths which lead to it out of the valley of the 
Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees, 
like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire 
over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, 
but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient popula- 
tion. Along the ridges of the rocks, smoothed by the old 
glaciers into long, dark billowy sweUings, like the backs of 
plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow coloring of 
the tufts of moss and roots ivhich, little by little, gather a 
feeble soil over the iron substance ; then, supporting the narrow 
strip of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the 
spade ; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving 
upon a rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out 
like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with 
perpetual streamlets, that seem always to have chosen the steep- 
est places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering 
their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes 
them, with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of 
fountains; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, 
yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the 
lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil." 

This ''play of human speech" is so exquisite that it is safe 
to infer the toil of the true artist. Note the imagery : the paths 
like "winding stairs"; the rounded rocks like "plunging dol- 
phins"— the porpoises of unpoetic fact; "the crest of corn 
upon the rocky casque" ; the meadows " Uke inlets of lake among 
the harvested rocks". Note also the large proportion of simple 
Anglo-Saxon words, rendering the few Latin words particularly 
effective. But what of the 'thats' and 'whiches'? The first 
'which' should be replaced by 'that' because it introduces a 
definition of "the paths", namely, those leading to this district 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 83 

from the Rhone. The second Svhich' is acceptable, because 
it introduces a descriptive clause, not essential to the argument. 
However, a comma is needed before it, to supplement the semi- 
colon after it. The first, and only, 'that' should be replaced 
by a Vhich', because it introduces a supplementary clause, 
not a defining or restrictive clause. Moreover, the use of Svhich' 
would be acceptable because it would avoid the repetition of 
'that' three lines lower. However, 'which' might be unpleasant 
between "streamlets" and "seem". Ruskin was writing some- 
thing akin to poetry, and may be deemed beyond the criticism 
that applies to technical writing, which is endangered by listen- 
ing for euphony. 

These quotations suffice to illustrate how Ruskin ignored 
the distinction on which I have ventured to lay stress. Other 
skilful users of English show the same disregard; for example, 
Huxley. He is speaking of the formation of coal: 

(50) "When the fallen trunks which have entered into the 
composition of the bed of coal are identifiable, they are mere 
double shells of bark, flattened together in consequence of the 
destruction of the woody core; and Sir Charles Lyell and 
Principal Dawson discovered, in the hollow stools of coal trees 
of Nova Scotia, the remains of snails, millipedes, and salaman- 
der-hke creatures, embedded in a deposit of a different char- 
acter from that which surrounded the exterior of the trees. 
Thus, in endeavoring to comprehend the formation of a seam 
of coal we must try to picture to ourselves a thick forest, formed 
for the most part of trees like gigantic club-mosses, mares- 
tails, and tree-ferns, with here and there some that had some 
resemblance to our existing yews and fir-trees. We must sup- 
pose that, as the seasons rolled b}^, the plants grew and devel- 
oped their spores and seeds; that they shed these in enormous 
quantities, which accumulated on the ground beneath; and that, 
every now and then, they added a dead frond or leaf; or, at 
longer intervals, a rotten branch, or a dead trunk, to the mass." 

This is quoted from one of his popular lectures, revised 
before publication, of course, but still not an example of his 



84 TECHNICAL WRITING 

most finished style. Nevertheless, it illustrates his power as 
an expositor of science to the unlearned. 

Three relative pronouns are used, besides the compound 
''that which". This obviously is necessitated by euphony. 
Even when the two pronouns, one demonstrative and the 
other relative, are separated we use 'that which' instead of 
'that that'. Likewise by analogy most writers prefer 'those 
which' or 'those who' to 'those that' ; thus : 

(51) "In those low-grade mines which call for rigid econ- 
omy." 

Returning to our quotation from Huxley; the first 'which' 
introduces a restrictive clause. It is true, by placing a comma 
before "which" and after "bed of coal", the clause could be 
treated as supplementary and descriptive, because Huxley 
had previously introduced the idea of coal being formed from 
fallen trees, but in the opening sentence of this paragraph he 
is undoubtedly defining the "fallen trunks" as the subject under 
discussion. The 'that' before "had some resemblance" is 
acceptable, for it is followed by a restrictive clause. The 
second 'which' likewise is correct, for it introduces a supple- 
mentary and non-essential bit of information. 

I shall quote from Huxley again, and from the same 'lay 
sermon' : 

(52) "Let us suppose that one of the stupid, salamander- 
like Labyrinthodonts, which pottered, with much belly and little 
leg, like Falstaff in his old age, among the coal-forests, could 
have had thinking power enough in his small brain to reflect 
upon the showers of spores which kept on falling through years 
and centuries, while perhaps not one in ten miUion fulfilled its 
apparent purpose, and reproduced the organism which gave 
it birth : surely he might have been excused for moralizing upon 
the thoughtless and wanton extravagance which Nature dis- 
played in her operations. But we have the advantage over 
our shovel-headed predecessor — or possibly ancestor — and can 
perceive that a certain vein of thrift runs through this apparent 
prodigahty. Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have had 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 85 

always before her eyes the adage, 'Keep a thing long enough 
and you will find a use for it'. ' She has kept her beds of coal 
many millions of years without being able to find much use for 
them; she has sent them down beneath the sea, and the sea- 
beasts could make nothing of them; she has raised them up 
into dry land, and laid the black veins bare, and still, for 
ages and ages, there was no living thing on the face of the earth 
that could see any sort of value in them; and it was only the 
other day, so to speak, that she turned a new creature out of 
her workshop, who by degrees acquired sufficient wits to make 
a fire, and then to discover that the black rock would burn." 

Six relative pronouns appear. The first calls for no remark; 
it introduces a bit of unessential, but delightful, description 
concerning the labyrinthodonts — they ' 'pottered with much 
belly and little leg, like Falstaff in his old age". The second 
'which' begins a restrictive clause, for, it seems to me, the 
words that follow, from "kept" to "birth" are essential to the 
statement, as is further suggested by the use of the definite 
article before "showers of spores". He is referring to showers 
of spores of a particular kind. The third 'which' undoubtedly 
should be replaced by 'that', for he defines the organism as 
the particular one from which the spore was born. The fourth 
'which' might be omitted; if not, then it also should give place 
to a 'that', for it introduces a restrictive clause. The fifth 
relative pronoun is a 'that', as it should be; but if he uses it 
here why does he not use it where the previous 'which' appears? 
Evidently he employs them undiscriminatingly. Then comes a 
'who', following "workshop", but with no reference to that 
word. By substituting 'that', and deleting the comma the 
sense is carried back to "new creature" and connected with the 
subsequent clause. He has used the conjunction 'that' immedi- 
ately before and after 'who', so he might have preferred the 
latter for the sake of euphony ; but it is more probable that he 
used 'who' in order to evoke the image of man's progenitor. 

It will be noted that, in these quotations, Huxley uses 'and' 
too frequently. He might have employed other connectives. 



86 TECHNICAL WRITING 

The 'and' before ''Sir Charles Lyell", in the first quotation, 
is particularly bad because he uses it to join two discrete ideas; 
moreover, he is compelled to use another 'and' immediately 
afterward to link the names of the two geologists. The writ- 
ings of these great men are not immune from criticism, which 
neither lessens our appreciation of their skill nor diminishes our 
enjoyment of their work. 

The reading of the best writings suggests that the general 
rule for the use of 'that' to introduce clauses expressing an 
essential Hmitation, restriction, distinction, or definition is 
subject to exception; it includes locutions that are unaccept- 
able. In attempting to further the cause of precision, we must 
not offend unnecessarily against usage that is old, honored, 
and persistent. As the word 'that' plays the part not only of 
a relative pronoun, but also of a demonstrative pronoun, an 
adverb, and a conjunction, it is desirable to spare it. Evidently 
sub-rules are needed. These can be found by analyzing the 
best writings. We have seen how an occasional 'that' can be 
dropped without harm. "A house not built by hands" has 
precision, conciseness, perspicuity, and dignity in greater 
degree than the alternative form, "A house that is not built 
by hands". I venture to suggest four sub-rules: 

(A) When the antecedent and the subject are brought 
together so that misunderstanding is impossible, as in the 
sentence just quoted, it is well to omit the 'that'. 

(B) When the indefinite article precedes the subject [for 
example, "a person"], the pronoun 'who' or 'which' should 
introduce the subsequent clause [for example, "whom you are 
anxious to persuade"]; but when the definite article is used 
Y'the person"], the pronoun 'that' should be employed to intro- 
duce the subsequent clause ["that you are anxious to please"]. 

In the first example, "a person" is not an individual but 
the representative of a group; in the second, the reference is 
to an individual to whom, or for whose sake in particular, 
something is to be done. Every relative clause tells something 
about the noun in the antecedent clause, and, therefore, in a 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 87 

sense, is adjectival; it serves in one way or another to describe, 
and by so doing to suggest restriction; yet it may not dis- 
tinguish or particularize; it may not point to it as necessarily 
the one thing of its kind in the world to which reference is being 
made. Then Svhich' is preferable. When, on the contrary, 
the idea of another thing with the same name is implicit, and 
the subsequent clause says in effect, 'This is the one I am 
talking about, not any of the others', then 'that' is demanded. 

(53) ''The police captured a thief who had a mole on the 
end of his nose, an ear missing, six toes on his left foot, and, 
whose thumb-print belonged to subdivision 67 of class G." 

There may have been no trouble in identifying him, yet 
the clause giving all this information begins properly with 
'who'. On the other hand: "The police caught the thief that 
they sought" points to one only; it separates him from others 
more completely than all the ear-marks given in the preceding 
quotation. 

(C) When a person or thing has been mentioned previously 
and designated as possessing some quality that differentiates 
him or it from others of his or its class, then 'who' or 'which' 
is preferable to 'that' in beginning a clause designed to recall 
the quaUty. "The Denver editor, who was contemptuous of 
the effort to write well, ignored this rule." My previous men- 
tion of him, as the man that wanted "to get there" in his own 
sHpshod way, made it unnecessary to identify him; therefore 
the clause after 'who' is a supplementary clause, by way of 
reminder only. 

(D) The relative clause ceases to introduce a necessary 
definition whenever the antecedent has been defined by a 
possessive pronoun; therefore 'who' or 'which' should replace 
'that'. 

(54) "My brother, who enHsted two years ago, has returned 
from France." 

(55) "Our methods, which may commend themselves to 
you, are the product of long experience.'' 

The relative pronouns are used far more than is necessary^ 



88 TECHNICAL WRITING 

and the lavish use of them invites needless trouble for both 
the writer and the reader. Several substitutes are available. 

(a) When the relative pronouns have led you into a verbal 
entanglement, cut loose, and start again with 'and this'. 

(56) ''He enlarged the mill, which enabled him to lower the 
cost per ton." 

It were better to say: 

"He enlarged the mill, and this enabled him to lower the 
cost per ton." 

(b) Another means of escape from a choice of relative pro- 
nouns is to begin a new sentence with a semicolon followed 
by 'this'; for example: 

(57) "He enlarged the mill; this enabled him to lower the 
cost per ton." 

(c) The defining clause can be replaced by the present 
participle, but be sure you have a noun for it! 

(58) "I have seen an Australian gold ore that resembles 
this." 

"That resembles" can be replaced by "resembling". 

(d) The infinitive is a common substitute, thus: 

(59) "He was the first that succeeded [to succeed]." 

(60) "This is not a man that will save [to save] money." 

(e) The relative pronouns are used often to introduce a 
clause giving a reason, whereas the explanatory clause should 
begin with 'since', 'because', or 'although'. 

(61) "The company is about to erect a leaching-plant for 
the silver-tin concentrate for which [because] it did not find a 
remunerative market [for it] either in England or Germany." 

(62) "Mines, which are usually regarded as sources of 
wealth, are often the cause of much financial loss." 

Here 'which' can be replaced by 'although', with a re- 
arrangement of the sentence, thus: 

"Mines are often the cause of much financial loss, although 
they are usually regarded as sources of wealth." 

(64) I wrote, "Delete the first 'that', which will be under- 
stood." Later I substituted 'because it' for the 'which'. 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 89 

(f) 'By which', 'in which', and other awkward locutions can 
be replaced by 'whereby' and 'wherein'. 

(65) "The method by which [whereby] this result can be 
achieved." 

(66) "It is a process in which [wherein] the nicest chemical 
adjustment is essential." 

I have drawn attention already to the occasional omission 
of the relative pronoun as favorable to perspicuity rather than 
to obscurity. Landor, in his ' Imaginary Conversations', makes 
Horn Tooke quote Cato, after Middleton : 

(67) "The high office which you fill and the eminent dis- 
tinction that you bear." 

To which Dr. Johnson replies: 
"Much better without both 'which' and 'that'." 
Later Tooke says: "The rejection of 'that' in the proper 
place is a cause of peculiar elegance, for it bears heavily on our 
language. The Romans were fortunate to avoid it by means 
of the infinitive of their verbs." 

(68) "He said that he would be glad to accept the appoint- 
ment." 

'That' can be omitted. 

(69) "Sulphide ores which [that] have [had] been previously 
untouched were shipped in large quantities." 

Why fuss about the relative pronouns needlessly? State 
simply : 

"Sulphide ore previously untouched was shipped in large 
quantity." 

Note the superfluous plurals; he was referring to only one 
kind of sulphide ore. 

(70) "It follows that the liquids which are near their critical 
point will have small surface-tensions." 

'That' should replace 'which'; but neither is needed. When 
corrected, the statement would read as follows: "It follows 
that liquids when near their critical points will have small 
surface-tensions." 

(71) "Substantial evidence is at hand which goes to 



90 TECHNICAL WRITING 

show that floatable minerals have the positive sign of elec- 
tricity." 

'Which' should be 'that', because it introduces a defining 
clause, but the change would bring the relative pronoun 'that' 
close to the conjunction 'that', and this w^ould be awkward. So 
it were better to say: 

"There is ample evidence to show that floatable minerals 
have the positive sign of electricity." 

" To hand " is a frill ; if the evidence is known, it is 'to hand '. 
"Substantial" may be a synonym for 'important' or 'strong', or 
'actual', as opposed to illusory. It is a mistake to use a word of 
many meanings without indicating the particular one intended. 
Remember the reader. Also remember that all rules must 
give way to the main objective, which is to make oneself under- 
stood beyond a doubt. If a sentence fails in this purpose, how^- 
ever correct grammatically, re-arrange it. Re-consider what 
you want to say and start again. Don't tinker with defective 
writing, for by so doing you run the risk of retaining one of the 
defects. Good writing calls for care — persistent care; it calls 
for a literary conscience that refuses to be satisfied with unfin- 
ished work. 

Kelley says: "There be not many so weU born, well 
trained, and well read, and withal so informed with the spirit 
of goodness and beauty, as to be effectually called to the higher 
ranges of literary expression; and even for such there is no 
short and easy road — though there is indeed a royal road — 
to their destination. But there are, and will continue to be, 
countless writers of higher or lower degree w^ho ought to do 
their work far better than they have done it, and far better 
than ordinary writers have ever done it. For all such it is 
important that they should at least know what to avoid; 
and knowing what to avoid is in effect knowing what to aim 
at and what to strive for. To trained workmen I do not profess 
to give instruction; but because in my own experience to have 
my attention called to an error has been so often the beginning 
of an effort henceforth to avoid it, I have confidence that any 



THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS 91 

other sincere workmen will be interested and helped if I make 
them think of faults to which they have paid little attention 
hitherto." 

I quote this with keen pleasure because Mr. Kelley says, 
better than I can, what I would like to say. 



VIII. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 

The function of a preposition is to indicate the relation of 
one thing to another; it is necessary therefore to select the 
preposition that suggests that relation. Such selection will be 
controlled by the requirements of the context and by idiomatic 
usage. 

(1) D'Israeh says: /'The conversations of men of letters 
are of a different complexion with the talk of men of the world." 

''The conversations of men of letters are of a complexion 
different /ro??z that of the talk of men of the world." 

(2) Hallam says: "This inspired so much apprehension 
into printers that they became unwilling to incur the hazard of 
an obnoxious trade." 

"This inspired printers with such apprehension that etc." 

(3) A. C. Benson says: "I want to learn to distinguish 
between what is important and unimportant, between what is 
beautiful and ugly, between what is true and false." 

One does not distinguish 'between' what is beautiful and 
ugly or 'between' any other single thing; one does distinguish 
between what is beautiful and what is ugly; but what he 
really wanted to do was to distinguish the beautiful from the 
ugly, the true from the false. 

(4) A physicist writes: "During the experiments a record 
was made on [of] the effect produced by various concentrations 
of sulphur di-oxide gas on [upon] the senses." 

(5) A metallurgist writes: "The two kinds of flotation 
concentrate are conducted through [by] concrete launders to the 
elevators." 

(6) An engineer says: "We must offer a protest over 
[against] this latest order." 

The use of the appropriate preposition is essential to per- 
spicuity. "One virtue of style is perspicuity", said Aristotle. 

92 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 93 

For example: 'to' denotes done, terminated, or finished; 
'from' denotes beginning; and 'by' denotes agency. 

Inside, outside, and alongside do not require an 'of after 
them. 

(7) "Alongside of this eccentric and disturbing force" 'The 
Saturday Review'. 

(8) "Outside of the market for military uses, a premium 
can be obtained for electrolytic zinc." 

(9) "The boat was moored alongside of the wharf." 
In each case 'of should be deleted. 

A common error is to place 'of after 'all', as in 

(10) "All of the men refused to work." 

(11) "He expected to roast all of the ore." 
A mining engineer protests: 

(12) " Under [in] these circumstances I refuse to agree to 
your proposal." 

A veteran mining engineer reminisces: 

(13) "Which led to my first introduction to that firm, the 
best known British firm in that country, and whom I subse- 
quently returned to work for in after years, and have since 
kept up a close professional connection with.'' 

Note the misplaced prepositions, ending the paragraph with 
one that is insignificant. The statement might be revised thus: 

"Which led to my introduction to Brown, Jones & Co., which 
is the best known British firm in that country and one for 
which I worked in after years; indeed, I may say that I have 
maintained a close pr©fessional connection with Brown, Jones 
& Co. to this day." 

The mention of the firm's name makes the statement 
clearer and more informing. 

(14) A superintendent writes: "It was proposed to widen 
the blades 7 to 11 inches." If he means that the width is to 
be increased by more than 7 inches, he should insert 'by' 
after 'blades'; but if he means, as he does, that the width is 
to be increased from 7 inches, as it is now, to 11 inches, he 
should insert 'from' after 'blades'. 



94 



TECHNICAL WRITING 



English idiom requires certain prepositions to follow certain 
nouns, adjectives, or verbs. The following list is far from 
complete, but it may prove suggestive and useful : 



Abound in 

Accord with 

Account for 

Acquiesce in 

Adhere to 

Adverse to 

Averse from 

Agree to a proposal 

Agree with a person 

Capable of 

Capacity for 

Consist of (composition) 

Consist i?i (definition) 

Commence by doing something 

Commence with an act 

Commence from a point 

Compare with 

Demand for a thing 

Demand of a person 

Differ from 

Different from 

Full of 

Indifferent to 

In view of facts 

With a view to doing something 

Labor under a difficulty 

Labor for a person 

Labor in a good cause 

Labor at a task 

Live for riches 

Live by labor 

Live on an income 

Look after a business 

Look at a thing 

Look into a matter 



Look over an account 

Look for a missing article 

Need of 

Necessity for 

Overcome with fatigue 

Overcome by entreaties 

Provide for the future 

Provide against the evil day 

Provide oneself with something 

Pursuant to 

In pursuance of 

Ready for a journey 

Ready with an answer 

Ready at arithmetic 

Reckon o?i a result 

Reckon with a contingency 

Reckoning with a person 

Responsible for an action 

Responsible to a person 

Result of an examination 

Result in a failure 

Result from a previous event 

Satisfied of a fact 

Satisfied with a little 

Satisfaction in an improvement 

Secure from harm 

Secure against attack 

Suited to the occasion 

Suited for a part 

Tamper with 

Tinker at 

Vary from 

At variance with 

Versed in 

Conversant with 



Prepositions commonly transfuse something of their own 
meaning into the word with which they are compounded. 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 



95 



In technical writing it will be found that words of Latin 
origin help to make nice distinctions of meaning and establish 
the precision for which we strive constantly. The short and 
simple Anglo-Saxon may suit the poet's purpose, but the 
engineer will discover that many old-fashioned English words 
have associations and meanings unfitting them for his special use. 
This applies to the numerous preposition-verbs, which, idiomatic 
though they be, and an essential part of our language, should be 
avoided or used sparingly by the technical writer. They came 
into every-day use long before modern science was developed 
and they carry with them the looseness of meaning character- 
istic of colloquial speech. Note the following equivalents: 



Call for 


Demand, require 


Carry out 


Perform, conduct 


Deal with 


Treat, discuss 


Decide on 


Select 


Do away Avith 


Discard 


End up 


Conclude 


Fall off 


Decline, decrease 


Go into 


Investigate, examine 


Go on with 


Continue 


Keep up 


Maintain 


Keep out 


Exclude 


Look for 


Anticipate, expect 


Look upon 


Regard 


Make up 


Compose 


Make use of 


Utilize 


Make up to 


Compensate 


Prove up 


Confirm 


Put in 


Insert 


Put up with 


Endure 


Refer to 


Mention 


Result in 


Cause 


Speed up 


Accelerate, hasten 


Try out 


Test 


Work out 


Devise 



(15) ''As regards the miners, a much more serious prospect 
of social disaster had been, it was hoped, done away with [pre- 
vented or obviated]." 



96 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(16) "The various innovations were tried out [tested] 
before being used." 

(17) '^The company has been meeting with [obtaining] 
profitable results at Cochasayhuas." 

As an editor I have become convinced that the excessive 
use of preposition- verbs is a serious obstacle to precision and 
clearness in writing. The habit of using them is more British 
than American, but it is an obstacle to perspicuous writing 
wherever the English language is spoken. 

(18) 'Punch' published a series of cartoons to show 'What 
our artist has to put uj) vjithJ 

The most cultivated of Englishmen trip over their prepo- 
sitions, largely because they employ so many preposition- 
verbs, which require the most careful handling. For example, 
Arthur J. Balfour said: 

(19) ''There must be men in the House [of Commons] who 
see that of all the evils the Constitution can suffer from rash 
legislation is the most dangerous." 

'To suffer from' is idiomatic — I cannot call it incorrect — 
but you will note the confusion caused by the misplacing of 
'from'. In speaking, 'from' is pronounced immediately after 
'suffer', leaving a slight interval before 'rash', but in reading 
'from' appears linked to 'rash legislation'. He meant to say: 

"There must be men in the House who see that of all the 
evils threatening the Constitution, the most dangerous is rash 
legislation." 

I am aware, of course, that Shakespeare can be quoted in 
defence of such a placing of the preposition; for example: 

(20) "What a taking was he in when your husband asked 
what was in the basket." 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act III, 
sc. 3. 

(21) "I have a letter from her 

Of such contents as you will wonder a^." 'Merry 
Wives of Windsor,' Act III, sc. 6. 

One can find examples of similar usage in the writings of 
Addison, Goldsmith, Jane Austen, Ruskin, and Stevenson, as 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 97 

shown by Professor Hill"', no mean authority on correct usage; 
but, on examination, it will be found that the examples quoted 
usually represent colloquial expressions. In technical writing 
the preposition-verb does not give the precision required. 
Shakespeare's characters spoke naturally, so they spoke 
imperfectly. I can find no just warrant for quoting slips of 
conversation as guides for correct usage in deliberate writing. 
I prefer Professor Hill's conclusion: ''A good author does not 
hesitate to put a preposition at the end of a sentence, when, on 
grounds of clearness, force, or ease, he thinks it belongs there; 
but often, perhaps usually, he finds that it belongs somewhere 
else." I submit that whereas sometimes the shifting of the 
preposition may contribute to ease it rarely ministers either to 
clearness or force. 

(22) 'The Westminster Gazette' says, ''One of the con- 
clusions at which Lord Rosebery has arrived at in the study of 
Dr. Johnson is that he would have made a splendid journalist." 

It seems to me that a "splendid journalist" would not have 
used his prepositions so carelessly. Delete the second 'at'. 

(23) 'The Times' speaks of "the unfailing enthusiasm which 
Mr. Roosevelt has met withy It were better to say, "the 
unfailing enthusiasm with which Mr. Roosevelt has been 
received." 

(24) E. F. Benson writes: "Lucia flicked off with the tassel 
of her riding whip a fly that her mare was twitching its skin to 
get rid o/." 

Evidently he forebore from writing 'her skin', because it 
might have suggested that the lady Lucia was being twitched. 

(25) Hilaire Belloc, the military critic, writes: "First, as 
to the points the bombardment of which from the air one reads 
of almost daily in the present development of the aerial offensive 
by the Allies — which, by the wa}^, is proving the increasing 
superiority of the allied air navies." 

What a bombardment of prepositions! 

* 'Beginnings of Rhetoric and Composition', by Adams Sherman Hill, 
pp. 489-490. 



98 TECHNICAL WRITING 

American authors make similar blunders; for example, 
William Dean Ho wells concludes an article thus: 

(26) ''This is the climax I have been working up to, and I 
call it a fine one; as good as a story to-be-continued ever ended 
an instalment withJ^ 

He makes a childish anti-climax by using an insignificant 
little preposition as his last word. 

(27) A social reformer writes: ''It is palpable that radical 
revision of laws, w^hich have diverted so many milhons of 
dollars into the pockets of the non-producing legal fraternity, 
is called /or." 

"There is palpable need for a radical revision of the laws 
that have caused so many millions of dollars to be diverted into 
the pockets of the unproductive legal fraternity." 

(28) Robert K. Duncan writes: "It should be the young 
man's business to learn ail the chemistry and cognate knowledge 
that he can lay his hands upon in the laboratory; and his 
brain alongside of in the study library." 

Note how the prepositions become coupled awkwardly in 
this quotation, which is full of literar}^ atrocities. 

(29) An engineer writes : " The gold-mining industry w^hich 
the Government looks to for its supply of gold." 

The 'to' should precede 'which'. 

A reviewer in the 'New Republic' begins a paragraph thus: 

(30) "He had met with [found or seen], in China in 1803, 
an old commentary of one of the books of Confucius." 

The six prepositions in this quotation tumble over one 
another in a heedless way; note the consecutive use of 'in' 
twice and of 'of thrice. 

C. W. Barron, in the 'Boston News Bureau', writes: 

(31) "Governments in Europe are breaking up. Govern- 
ments in Mexico are one after another breaking down.^' 

Does he mean that the change from the Czar to the Bol- 
shevists is upward and from Diaz to the Villistas downward? 
Quien sabef The feeble prepositions are burdened with too 
much philosophy. 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 99 

President Wilson said recently: 

(32) ''One can feel sure that Franklin would have succeeded 
in any part of the national life that it might have fallen to his 
lot to take part in.'^ 

The use of 'part' in two different senses is confusing. He 
meant : 

"One can feel sure that Franklin would have succeeded 
in any department of the national life." 

The same distinguished writer said : 

(33) "If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with 
with a firm hand." 

'Dealt with' stands for 'punished'. 

If the literati blunder so absurdly, it is no wonder that 
casual writers go astray; they use prepositions in order to 
intensify their verbs; for example, to 'test out', to 'win out'. 

(34) "He tested out the process." 

(35) "He is sure to win out in this competition." 

I note that the other day Colonel House ''sat in with the 
Big Four", and more recently I heard a man say: ''Jones lost 
my umbrella on me." 

A San Francisco newspaper recorded the fact that a bogus 
British peer had made the acquaintance of a soubrette on 
board ship coming from Honolulu. The reporter stated that 
the young man had "met up with" the young woman. Pre- 
sumably to 'meet' a person is one thing; to 'meet with' him 
suggests more than a chance encounter; and to 'meet up with' 
him may be tantamount to a scandal in high life. 

The New York ' Morning Telegraph' remarks : 

(36) "When we first joined out with the Allies". 

A common phrase is "to join in with"; the 'in' however has 
no meaning, and that is why, probably, the scribbler of the 
'Morning Telegraph' substituted 'out', which also is redundant, 
if not worse. 'Out' suggests 'asunder', and therefore conflicts 
with the meaning of the verb 'join'. 

Many preposition-verbs are idiomatic, as I have said; 
they are part of our language, but they should be used sparingly 



100 TECHNICAL WRITING 

in technology, which cannot suffer careless colloquialisms 
without serious loss of clarity. It may be proper to settle down 
in the country in order to settle up one's debts in the city. 
Some of these preposition-verbs are not lightly to be dispensed 
with, but the technical man should not melt down a charge and 
melt up a slag, nor should he test out a process or prove up an 
orebody. He ought to do away with these meaningless httle 
obstacles to clear speech. In German such preposition-verbs 
are compounded, and in English it would help if we 'shut- 
down' a mill or 'opened-up' a mine. Usually a single and more 
explicit word is available. Frequently the prepositicn-verb is 
followed by a preposition, as illustrated in the examples already 
quoted. Here are others: 

(37) "The richest mine I met with in my travels." 

In speaking, the first preposition ('with') follows the verb 
('met') without a pause, so that the second preposition ('in') 
is given its separate value; in reading, such a sequence of 
prepositions becomes ungainly or even obscuring. 

(38) "The sulphides came in on the next level. '^ 
"Sulphides began to appear on the next level." 

He was referring to the fact that the bottom of the oxidized 
zone had been reached. 

(39) "This plan is being carried out on the Violet claim." 
"This plan is being followed [or "This method of work is 

being applied"] on the Violet claim." 

(40) "They are piled on to the thickness of six or eight 
inches." 

"They are piled six or eight inches thick." 
The 'on' is redundant, because 'pihng' means the heaping 
of things upon one another. 

(41) "The tar by-product was difficult to dispose of to the 
tar-distillers." 

"It was difficult to market this tar by-product among the 
distillers," or "to sell this by-product to the distillers." 

(42) "Three separate tests were carried on in this appa- 
ratus." 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 101 

'' Three separate tests were made [or performed] in this 
apparatus." 

An authority on the art of writing says: 

(43) '' What should we aim ai in learning to write Eng- 
lish?" 

My reply to him is that, among other things, we should aim 
to avoid preposition-verbs. Each of the preposition-verbs in 
the foregoing five examples can be replaced to advantage by a 
more significant word. 

The authority on writing might have said: 

" What should be our aim [purpose, or object] in learning 
to write English? " 

Here are further examples, with suggested corrections: 

(44) ''The ore is hard and requires to be shaken up with 
[shattered by] powder." 

(45) ''The final decision was not arrived at [reached] for 
several hours." 

(46) "Classification was exhaustively dealt with [considered 
or discussed]." 

(47) "They will not accept credits unless backed up with 
[by] a proper gold reserve." 

(48) "Nor did any one of them describe a practical form 
of apparatus for conducting the proposed operation m." 

He meant an "apparatus for performing the proposed 
operation." 

(49) "The investigations were not confined to 'oils' alone, 
as many substances which for the purposes of this process 
acted in a similar manner to oils were experimented with.'^ 

"The experiments were not confined to 'oils' alone; they 
were applied to substances that acted like oil." 

(50) "The vanning-shovel shows the condition of the tin 
ore which [that] one has to deal with.''^ 

Substitute 'crush', 'concentrate', 'treat', according to the 
meaning intended. "Deal with" says nothing. 

(51) "This depends on whether any more can be got out 
[extracted] at a profit." 



102 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(52) ^' Those who have gone in for [undertaken] serious 
work." 

(53) ''Oil can be made iise of [utiHzed] to float mineral." 

(54) ''The output has been much interfered with [hindered 
or curtailed] by pohtical disorder." 

(55) "In the end the copper companies won out.^'' Delete 
"out". 

(56) "In this part of Mexico the more vitreous rhyolites 
are met with.^^ 

This suggests an encounter with a band of Yaqui Indians on 
the warpath. Substitute: 

"In this part of Mexico, the vitreous type of rhyolite is 
common." 

(57) "The feeding of the machine is carefully attended to 
[regulated]." 

It is the result of the attention, not the act itself, that is to 
be emphasized. 

(58) "The sinter cools off and disintegrates." Delete 
"off". 

But the worst blunders arise from the misplacing of these 
wretched little prepositions. 

(59) "These are matters which the Chamber of Mines 
might with profit devote a few minutes /o." 

"These are matters to which the Chamber of Mines might 
profitably devote a few minutes." This is roundabout; re- 
write the sentence, thus: 

"These are matters that the Chamber of Mines might 
consider." 

(60) "This is kind of you; I cannot find words to thank 
you 2>?." 

This is another example of transposition. 

"I cannot find words in [or 'with'] which to thank you." 

(61) "Corrosive water, which resulted in the formation of 
rust on the steel tubes and the gradual closing of the openings, 
was a serious obstacle." 

Here we have a weak preposition-verb ('result in') and an 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 103 

abstract phrase joining to obscure the sense. Probably he 
meant to say: 

"Corrosive water was a serious obstacle, since it formed 
rust, which gradually closed the steel tubes." 

(62) "As an illustration of how the activities of corpora- 
tions affect our daily Hfe, I thought it would be interesting to 
find out how many people were employed by the corporations 
I would have to deal with in coming from New York to Denver." 

This was written by an experienced writer. He might have 
said : 

"To illustrate how far the activities of corporations affect 
our daily life, I thought it would be interesting to ascertain 
how many people were employed by the [railroad] corporations 
with which I would have to deal while coming from New York 
to Denver." 

(63) "The properties which it now consists of are many 
old and new claims." 

He means: "The properties of which it now consists include 
many old and new claims." However, further correction is 
needed, namely, the deletion of the words in italic, all of which 
are redundant. The plural of 'property' is not required. 
"The property now includes both old and new claims." 

(64) "The ore is broken alciig with the barren rock." 

(65) "Over against this pessimistic report, we have the 
sanguine opinion of Professor Smith." 

'Along' and 'over' are needless and awkward. 

(66) " When oil is shaken up [agitated] with water or some 
[other] liquid with which it is not miscible, an emulsion is 
formed." The oil, owing to its specific gravity, would rest on 
top of the water before agitation, which would actually result 
in shaking it down. ' Shaken up ' conveys an incorrect idea. 

(67) " The permission to go on with [continue] their business." 

(68) " I submit that the consistent way of meeting the want 
is for such a reserve to be provided for in the initial capital- 
ization." 

The prepositions crowd each other. He means to say: 



104 TECHNICAL WRITING 

''I submit that the proper method is to provide for such a 
reserve when arranging the original capitaHzation." 

(69) ''This matter has been [was] dealt with [discussed] in 
my last chapter/' 

(70) ''Many miles of the railway were constructed and 
connected up with the old line out of Mersina and Alexandretta." 
Delete 'up'. 

(71) "Writing on a subject one is interested in is a fasci- 
nating entertainment which I have often indulged in.'' 

The entertainment must have been all his, not his reader's, 
if he misplaced his prepositions in this way. He should have 
written : 

"Writing on a subject that interests one is a fascinating 
entertainment, in which I have often indulged." 

Preposition- verbs are idiomatic; for that very reason they 
lend themselves to misunderstanding: 

(72) "How did you come to fall into the pond?" said the 
farmer to the dripping lad, still clutching his fishing-rod. "I 
didn't; I came to fish", he sobbingly replied. 

(73) A soldier running to the rear is asked : "What are you 
running for f' He retorts: "You should say, 'What are you 
running /rom'.^" 

A typical example is: 

(74) "The richest mine I met with in my travels." Apart 
from the awkwardness of coupling two prepositions that are 
not related to each other, this quotation exempHfies the use 
of a preposition-verb that itself has no significance and serves 
only to set aside the verb that tells the meaning, namely, 
whether the writer 'visited', 'inspected', or 'saw' the mine, or 
whether he merely heard about it from others in the course of 
his travels. ' Met with' is one of those old colloquial idiomatic 
phrases that say nothing. Similar criticism applies to many 
other preposition-verbs; they are wholly unsuited for use in 
technical writing, which aims to convey crystallized ideas and 
precise information. 

The preposition has many uses, and they are made more 



PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITION-VERBS 105 

significant by avoiding misuse. Here are some examples of 
good usage. 

(75) ''The oil and water (as an emulsion) is fed in at the 
centre and thrown out at the circumference." 

Here "in" and ''out" are antithetic. The singular verb is 
correct because the "oil" and the "water" are considered as a 
unit. 

(76) "The flask containing the extract was placed on a 
water-bath; after most of the ether had been distilled off, 
the residue was transferred to a small separating-funnel of 
known weight." Here the "off" is emphatic. 

The preposition- verb is idiomatic; so also sometimes is the 
placing of the preposition at the end of the sentence; our 
language derives these idioms from the Anglo-Saxon, or Low 
German, part of its origin. In German one says: 

(77) "MachenSiedieThiire^u." 

Old-fashioned provincial people in the West of England still 
say: "Shut the door io." 

(78) A Cornish miner will say: " Where be going ^o.^ " 
The gain of emphasis by placing a preposition at the end of 

a statement survives, usefully, in such a phrase as: "Just 
now Russia is a good country to come from.^^ This was writ- 
ten by an engineer who had arrived in San Francisco from a 
copper mine in Siberia; the statement is not only idiomatic 
but highly expressive, for the three significant words are 'now', 
'Russia', and 'from'; of these the last is the most significant; 
it gains significance by being last. 

In such sentences the preposition has an adverbial value; 
as also in 

(79) "He has gone out.'' 

(80) "He told him to sit wp." 

In the first lecture I quoted Huxley. You will remember 
what he said of a writer who used big words needlessly: "He 
will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the technical 
phraseology which he has got up.'' Here "up" is adverbial. 
It ends the sentence unpleasantly. "Got up" could be replaced 



106 TECHNICAL WRITING 

advantageously by 'prepared', or 'concocted', or 'learned'. 
It would be an improvement to substitute 'that' for 'which', 
so that the last clause would read "that he has learned". 

An authority* says: "The common behef that a sentence 
ending with a preposition is on that account incorrect is a mis- 
take; such sentences abound in good literature." True, but 
defective sentences also abound in good literature, and great 
writers occasionally make errors in composition. The homely 
usage illustrated by "shut the door to" may have idiomatic 
excuse, but I submit to you that such phrases are inappro- 
priate to careful speech and quite inappropriate to precise 
writing. I can assure you, as an editor, that the habit of 
employing preposition-verbs, and the consequent liability to 
misplace the preposition, will hinder you in the acquisition of 
such a style as is best adapted to the discussion of technical 
subjects. 

I have said enough concerning the use of prepositions; 
I trust that you will pay attention to this detail; if you do, you 
will, I feel sure, learn to write more clearly. In my own writ- 
ing I have found attention to this matter a great help, and that 
is why I have discussed the subject at some length. Above all, 
remember what the old lady said: "A preposition is a poor 
thing to end up a sentence with.'^ 

* E. C. WooUey, in his 'Handbook of Composition', page 37. 



IX. HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS. 

A severely technical article, however well written, cannot 
be an agreeable form of literature. It suffers from the defects 
of its qualities. One defect is a congestion of language, due 
to a multiplicity of adjectival nouns. The sentences are packed 
with words of unpleasing sound, charged with complex ideas, 
crowding one another so closely that the phraseology moves 
like an ice-pack in Bering Sea or a log-drive in a river; the 
undercurrent of meaning may move confidently, but the sur- 
face is obstructed. 

To regulate the flow of language, so as to indicate the rela- 
tion of adjoining words, it becomes necessary to use hyphens. 
Hyphens are unlovely assistants, regrettable necessities, but 
without them the writer of technology must fail to convey his 
thought, or must seek a mode of expression so roundabout as 
to exhaust the reasonable limits of time and paper. For example : 

(1) "High speed tool steel is much in demand by manu- 
facturers of munitions." 

The sense of the first four words, one an adjective and the 
others nouns, is not obvious to the uninitiated; the meaning is 
that there is a demand for a steel suitable for making tools that 
serve as cutting instruments when run at high speed (in such 
machines as lathes, planes, and drill-presses). This is said, and 
said clearly, by inserting two hyphens thus : 

'^ High-speed tool-steel is in much demand by manufac- 
turers of munitions." 

The use of hyphens is not generally understood by engineers ; 
either they do not employ them sufficiently to make themselves 
clear, or they sprinkle them like the sand that an earlier gene- 
ration used, for drying the ink, before blotting-paper had been 
invented. 

107 



108 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Consider the difference between 

cooling floor and cooling-floor 

sinking pump '' sinking-pump 

level floor '' level-floor 

iron furnace ^' iron-furnace 

paper mill " paper-mill 

zinc box " zinc-box 

sample bottle " sample -bottle 

tin plate *' tin-plate 

bent rod " bent-rod 

melting point '^ melting-point 

burning oil " burning-oil 

A 'cooling floor' is one that is growing cold; a 'cooling- 
floor' is one on which hot ore is cooled; it is a floor /or cooling. 
A 'sinking pump' is a pump that is sinking or subsiding; a 
'sinking-pump' is a pump to be used in sinking a shaft; it is a 
pump /or sinking. A ' level floor' is one with a uniformly horizon- 
tal surface; a 'level-floor' is the floor of a level in a mine. A 
'paper mill' is one made of paper; a 'paper-mill' is one that 
makes paper. An 'iron furnace' is a furnace made of iron; 
an 'iron-furnace' is one used for smelting iron ore. A 'zinc 
box' is made of zinc; a 'zinc-box' contains zinc, as, for example, 
the box in which zinc is placed to precipitate gold from cyanide 
solutions. A 'sample bottle' is a sample of bottles; a 'sample- 
bottle' is a bottle to hold a sample. A 'tin plate' is a plate of 
tin; 'tin-plate' is iron that is plated or covered with tin. A 
'bent rod' is a rod that is bent, but a 'bent-rod' is a detail of 
a conventional engineering structure. A 'melting point' is a 
point that is melting; a 'melting-point' is the point at which 
melting begins. A 'burning oil' is oil that is burning; a 
'burning-oil' is an oil suitable for burning. The 'solid surface' 
is the surface of a body that is not sohd underneath, whereas 
the 'solid-surface' is the surface of a soUd, and it is as well to 
say so, by aid of the hyphen, instead of indulging in round- 
about explanations. 



HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 109 

A 'single stamp-mill' is a lonesome mill. 

A 'single-stamp mill' is a mill consisting of batteries of one 
stamp each, like the Nissen, instead of the usual five stamps 
per battery. 

A 'single-stamp-miir is a mill containing only one stamp, 
after the Lake Superior fashion, where one big steam-stamp 
does the work of 150 ordinary gravity-stamps. 

A 'crude ore-bin' is an ore-bin of crude construction. 

A 'crude-ore bin' is a bin made to contain crude ore, that 
is, ore as it comes from the mine, before it has been crushed, 
concentrated, or subjected to other preliminary treatment. 

A 'crude ore bin' is an example of crude writing. 

Hyphens are not agreeable things, as I have said, but they 
are a great help in technical writing. For instance: 

(2) "The crushed section of No. 2 shaft had to be entirely 
recovered and retimbered." 

What does he mean? The shaft has been timbered again 
or 're-timbered', that is clear; but has the shaft collapsed and 
has it been 'recovered', that is, restored, or has only the cov- 
ering of the shaft been shattered, so that the shaft has had to 
be 're-covered'? If he had used the hyphen in 'retimbered', 
it would have made clear his whole statement by giving sig- 
nificance to the omission of the hyphen in 'recovered', but as 
he omitted the hyphen in the one place, where it was wanted, 
he may have omitted it in the other also, so that one can not 
determine whether the shaft has been 'recovered ' or 're-covered '. 
The difference is important, a^s measured in money and time. 

The following are wrong: 

(3) Air transmission-pipe. 

(4) Dry vacuum-pump. 

(5) Tungsten filament-lamp. 

(6) The standard Merrill screw zinc-dust feeder. 

(7) Stock solution-tank. 

(8) Compressed air-motors. 

(3) It is a pipe for transmitting air, not an airy pipe of 
transmission; therefore the hyphen should be transferred thus: 



110 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Air-transmission pipe. 

(4) The emphasis is on the dry vacuum, not on the dryness 
of the pump. It should be 

Dry- vacuum pump. 

(5) The filament is made of tungsten, not the lamp. Hence 
Tungsten-filament lamp. 

(6) The word 'screw' modifies 'feeder'; he meant 
The standard Merrill zinc-dust screw-feeder. 

(7) The solution was kept in stock, not the tank; he meant 
the tank in which the stock solution was kept, thus : 

Stock-solution tank. 

(8) The air is compressed, not the motor. It should be 
Compressed-air motor. 

Out gf a single article I take the following examples of 
compound words. I shall give them to you first without the 
hyphens and you will note what a jumble of meanings they 
suggest. Then I shall insert the necessary hyphens and you 
will see how the thought emerges: 

(9) Crushing plant conveyor belt. 
Crushing-plant belt-conveyor. 

The traveling belt that conveys the ore to the plant where 
it is crushed. 

(10) Electric bell overhead alarms. 
Electric-bell overhead-alarms. 

Alarms were placed overhead, and these alarms consisted 
of bells operated electrically. 

(11) Ball check air inlet valves. 
Ball-check air-inlet valves. 

They are valves that check the admission of air by means of 
balls acting automatically. 

(12) A screw conveyor chain driven from the classifier shaft. 

A screw-conveyor chain-driven from the classifier-shaft. 

This is a screw the turning of which moves the pulp, con- 
veying it to another part of the mill. The screw is turned by 
means of a chain that is driven from the shaft that also drives 
the classifying machine. 



HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 111 

(13) 'The motor is connected to the tube mill gear shaft 
by silent chain drives and Hill clutches." 

'The motor is connected to the tube-mill gear-shaft by 
silent-chain drives and Hill clutches." 

This motor furnishes the power that causes the tube-mill 
to revolve, such power being transmitted to the cogs on the 
perimeter of the tube by means of a noiseless chain, the sprocket- 
wheel of which is engaged and disengaged by a Hill clutch. 

Other examples follow : 

(14) ''The blast furnace gas will be delivered to a bag 
house through 600 ft. of brick dust chamber." 

Note how a few hyphens, properly placed, clarify the 
sentence : 

"The blast-furnace gas will be delivered to a bag-house 
through 600 ft. of brick dust-chamber." 

The chamber is not made of brick-dust. 

(15) "These cannel coal tar oils are high in paraffine." 

No clear idea emerges until a couple of hyphens are placed 
in their right places : 

"The cannel-coal tar-oils are high in paraffine." 

(16) "From this base line right angled lines were extended 
in the direction of the dip of the vein." 

The sentence should be written: "From this base-line 
right-angled lines were extended on the dip of the vein." 

(17^) "The best compound condensing poppet valve steam 
engine will produce an indicated horse-power hour on 12 pounds 
of steam." 

When I read the last example I was reminded of the lady 
in Kansas after the tornado had passed. It is related that 
" she looked up from her washing and found the air thick with 
her intimate friends." The broken limbs of this sentence must 
be joined with grammatical splints, these useful hyphens of 
which we are speaking, thus: 

" The best compound-condensing poppet-valve steam-engine 
will produce one indicated horse-power per hour on 12 pounds 
of steam." 



112 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(18) ''As to the dressing of the amalgamated plates, he 
concluded that 12 hour intervals were the best." 

Was it 12 intervals of one hour or was it intervals of 12 hours 
each? He meant 12-hour intervals. 

(19) Similarly: ''A train of ten ton cars" leaves it ques- 
tionable whether it be ''a train of ten 1-ton cars" or "o. train of 
10-ton cars." 

(20) "Each of the two hundred foot sections." Is it ''each 
of the 200-ft. sections" or "each of the two 100-ft. sections"? 

Compound adjectives preceding the noun that they qualify 
require hyphens, as "first-class ore", "3-inch pipe", "five-mile 
haul". This applies to compounds with 'well' and 'ill', like a 
"well-estabhshed industry" or "an ill-advised action", but 
hyphens are not desirable after longer adverbs modifying adjec- 
tives, as in "hastily written report" or "nearly completed 
work". 

Hyphens are of great service in technology, however ugly 
they may seem to the litterateur, to the writer of polite prose. 
No engineer can afford to ignore them if he desire to write 
clearly. 

(21) "The average shoe-and-die consumption in a stamp- 
battery". 

The wear of shoes and dies concurrently is the subject. 

(22) "An early design of central-discharge ball-tube mill". 
The two hyphenated words modify "mill". This would 

not be expressed by "central discharge ball tube-mill". It is 
a mill of tubular shape in which steel balls are used to expedite 
grinding, the pulp being discharged through a central opening. 
'Ball' and 'tube' modify 'mill' equally. 

(23) "His theory is what one might term a resolution 
theory." As if he were a man of high resolve. It should be 
're-solution', referring to the secondary dissolving of the gold. 

Note similarly the difference between 'retreat' and 're-treat' : 

(24) "Mining was started at the edge of the ore on the top 
sub-level and carried downward level by level: this retreating 
method was desirable for two reasons." 



HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 113 

He says what he means, the hyphen is not needed; but it 
is necessary in the tollowing statement: 

(25) ''The method of re-treating the taihng was intro- 
duced by a clever metallurgist named Smith." 

Note how much clearer the meaning is conveyed by 'half- 
way' than by 'halfway'. 

Now you have seen how important a function is served by 
the hyphen. No cast-iron rule can be formulated to guide you 
in this matter, but I may say to you that a varying degree of 
intimacy exists between words. Three degrees of intimacy are 
to be noted: 

A. Mere juxtaposition, or neighborliness, of separate words, 
indicating a loose connection. 

B. Hyphenation, implying intimacy without an entire 
loss of individuality. 

C. Compounds, expressing a singleness of meaning. 
Roughly the three states in which two adjacent words may 

exist can be represented by single blessedness, betrothal, 
marriage. The hyphenated condition, like an engagement, 
may be broken, and a word may form a new combination with 
another word for which it has affinity. After a time, two words 
may have been hyphenated so long that they acquire a single- 
ness of meaning, they are married, and are treated as a unit. 
For example, 'today', 'tonight', and 'tomorrow' require no 
hyphens. The retention of them is due to unthinking con- 
servatism. The 'to' in 'today' has no significance apart from 
'day'. The word expresses a single idea and the hyphen is 
a meaningless survival. It has been estimated that 150,000,000 
persons write these three words, 'to-day', 'to-night', and 'to- 
morrow', three times daily, on average, and that the omission 
of the hyphen would save an amount of energy in the aggregate 
equal to that required to propel an ordinary passenger-train 
round the world. Let us save the energy thus squandered and 
use it in placing our hyphens where they are needed. 

In hyphenated terms Uke 'cooHng-tower' and 'precipitating- 
tank' the first member of the couple is a gerund; it is a verbal 



114 TECHNICAL WRITING 

noun identical in form with the present participle; but the 
participle • is an adjective, and the gerund is a noun that has 
the power to govern another noun. In these and similar com- 
mon hyphenated terms (for example, ^amalgamating-tables', 
'condensing-chamber', 'leaching-vat') the preposition 'for' must 
be understood; we mean 'a tower for cooling gases', 'a tank 
for precipitating solutions', and so forth. If the phrase have 
this meaning, the hyphen should be inserted; if not, it should 
be omitted. A 'precipitating solution' is one that is in the act 
of precipitating ; if the reference is to a solution for precipitating 
something else, the hyphen would indicate this meaning, thus, 
a 'precipitating-solution'. A 'fro thing-agent' is an agent for 
making froth, not one that froths. 

In technical writing it is necessary to compound words in 
order to condense the phrasing, and the hyphen is a means of 
doing so, but the careful writer will avoid throwing words 
together in a telegraphic style that leaves the sense obscure. 
Aristotle said that the use of compound words, "such as 
Lycophron's 'many-visaged heaven', 'vast-crested earth', and 
'narrow-passaged strand' " was in bad taste. He remarked 
also that they were "eminently serviceable to dithyrambic 
poets, whose style is noisy". The moral is to avoid careless 
compounding and to indicate careful compounding by hyphen- 
ation. 

(26) "Too much air increases the fuel consumption [con- 
sumption of fuel]." 

(27) "The Bureau of Mines made a study of fume losses 
[losses in fume]." 

(28) "This is done to prevent edge wear [wear at the 
edges]." 

(29) "The rubber belt manufacturers [of rubber belts] have 
shown great interest in this subject." 

(30) "Except where a gulch marks a stream-course [the 
course of a stream]." 

(31) "The assay is given a borax glass cover." 

A hyphen between borax and glass would help to clarify 



HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 115 

the description, but it is better to avoid the adjectival use of 
'borax-glass' by saying "a cover of borax-glass". 

(32) ''The appraisal system is technically an admirable one." 
"The system of appraisal is admirable technically." 

(33) "A water spray cooled the air." 

It was the water, not the spray, that cooled the air; there- 
fore it is better to say: 

"A spray of water cooled the air." 

(34) "The air and power consumption was not determined." 
"The consumption of air and of power were not determined." 

(35) "A typical copper flotation taiUng screen and copper 
analysis follows which illustrates this point." 

What a jumble! He means: 

"A screen analysis, with assays, of the flotation tailing from 
a typical copper ore will illustrate this point." 

In each of the foregoing quotations it is possible to use a 
hyphen to mark the relation of the compounds, but it is not 
desirable, the meaning being made clearer by straightforward 
writing involving the use of a preposition to indicate the rela- 
tion between the words. 

(36) "Heavy metal salts". 

He means 'heavy-metal salts', but it is better to write 
"salts of the heavy metals". 

(37) "Chlorite is present as a persistent alteration product 
from biotite." 

Is it a product of persistent alteration or a persistent prod- 
uct of alteration? 

(38) "The machine that weighs the mixed ore and con- 
centrates charge." 

Here the four words before 'charge' constitute an adjectival 
clause; the meaning is held in suspense too long, and the 
effect is confusing. He means: 

"The machine that weighs the charge of ore and con- 
centrate." The charge is obviously a mixture. 

(39) "Allow a full air draught [draught of air] to pass 
through." 



116 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(40) "Specially designed cars". 
"Cars of special design". 

The adjectival use of nouns and the consequent coupling of 
nouns is carried to an excess that is disagreeable. Often it 
clouds the expression or entails unnecessary hyphenation. 

(41) " iif me samp/m^ is never an easy task." 
"The sampling of mines is never an easy task." 

(42) "The vein course was indicated by a mere seam." 
"The course of the vein was indicated by a mere seam." 
Hyphens are required between the two words itahcized in 

each of the two sentences last quoted. They can be avoided 
by the alternative phrasing. 

(43) "The air volume [volume of air] is calculated from its 
velocity in a drift." 

(44) "This greatly reduced the gas consumption [consump- 
tion of gas]." 

(45) "There are no cost figures [figures of cost] as yet." 

(46) "A battery charging and changing station." 
"A station for charging and changing batteries." 

(47) "An additional 10% of the sulphur is allowed as 
furnace oxidation loss [for loss by oxidation in the furnace]." 

(48) "This is true of powdered coal fired reverberatories," 
"This applies to reverberatories (or reverberatory furnaces) 

fired with powdered coal. " 

In this last example, as quoted, the three words preceding 
'reverberatories' constitute an adjectival clause. Such tumbhng 
of words together has become an ugly characteristic of tech- 
nical writing; it avoids hyphenation, it is true, but only at the 
cost of a worse construction, if anything so unsj^stematic 
and inarticulate can be thus dignified. More than any other 
defect, this habit renders technical writing not only non- 
literary but uncouth. So, take pains to avoid it, either by 
using the necessary prepositions or by an intelligent use of 
hyphens. 

The 'fifty-first' means the one coming after fifty, but the 
* fifty first' are the fifty that come first, the first fifty. 



HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS 117 

(49) "Light house-keeping is not good for Hght-house 
keepers." 

Finally, consider the difference, the pathetic difference, 
between 're-covering' an old umbrella that is out of repair, 
and 'recovering' a new umbrella, perhaps a Christmas gift, 
that you had lost. 



X. SLOVENLINESS 

Slovenliness is as disgraceful in words as in clothes. 
Much writing that we recognize as poor in style is merely 
sloppy. Just as some students postpone the necessary shave 
or forget to change their collars, so young engineers drop their 
articles, definite and indefinite, or omit prepositions where they 
are required, as if to compensate for those they use unneces- 
sarily. 

(1) "[During] the preceding summer I went to Nevada.'^ 

(2) ''The work will begin [on] Saturday." 

(3) "Influenza seriously affected many mines [during] the 
last three months." 

(4) "Flotation in America [during] the last two years has 
made tremendous strides." 

The sign of the infinitive should not be omitted; this is a 
common blunder. 

(5) "All such work helps [to] solve the problem of efficiency." 
The verb be is used both as a principal and as an auxiliary. 

(6) "At first the work was interesting and [was] liked by 
most of the men." 

(7) "The drop of crusher lubricating oil could not get into 
the bin and mix with the ore." 

The adjectival use of nouns leads to a jumble; he means 
"The lubricating oil on the crusher could not drip into the 
bin and mix with the ore." 

(8) "Construction of the mill started [on] August 12, 1915, 
at which time 75% [three-fourths] of the excavation was com- 
pleted." 

Abridgements that leave the reader to guess the writer's 
meaning are bad. Theodore Roosevelt wrote: 

(9) "While camped on the Nzoi, the honey-birds were 
almost a nuisance." 

118 



SLOVENLINESS 119 

Roosevelt and his party, not the honey-birds, were camped 
on the Nzoi. Such elHptical phraseology is slovenly. 
Do not omit the connecting pronoun. 

(10) ''Their vein is not as wide, nor the ore as rich, as the 
Combination." 

''The vein in their mine is not as wide, nor the ore as rich, 
as that in the Combination." 

(11) " Many mining booms such as [those of] 1906 and 1916." 

(12) "A rate of drilling much superior to [that of] the old 
piston-drill." 

A finite verb must agree with its subject, says the rule. 

(13) "One of the most brilliant contributions to geology 
that has [have] been made." 

The correct form sounds awkward; the attractive form is 
wrong; avoid both. The clause "that has been made" is 
redundant. 

(14) "Anyone can measure with a glance, when they are 
tired." 

Ruskin, who wrote this, meant 'when he is tired' or 'when 
tired'. 

Participles are commonly misused by novices. The dangling 
of a participle at the beginning of a sentence contravenes the 
rule of grammar that the substantive to which a participle 
relates must appear in the same sentence. For example: 

(15) "Approaching the vein, the serpentine is seen to be 
decayed." 

"As we approached the vein, we observed that the serpen- 
tine was decayed." 

(16) "Examined carefully no fossils were detected." 
"Although I examined the rocks carefully, I could detect 

no fossils" or "Although the rocks were examined carefully, 
no fossils were detected". 

(17) "Turning westward there is a striking change." 
"Turning westward the observer beholds a striking change." 

(18) "In going seaward the boulders become smaller." 
"Toward the sea the boulders are smaller." 



120 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Even practised writers are frequently guilty of the error of 
using participial phrases having no logical relation to the clauses 
preceding. Thus : 

(19) "The sandstones are massive, occurring chiefly in the 
lower half of the formation." 

''The sandstones, which are massive, are chiefly in the lower 
half of the formation." 

(20) ''The output of the mine is about 100 tons daily, its 
assay-value being $50." 

"The daily output of the mine consists of 100 tons of ore, 
averaging $50 per ton." 

Another misuse is illustrated in the sentence: 

(21) " The vein has a general width of 1 to 6 inches, widening 
[but] in places [it widens] to 12 inches." 

Here the participle is used as an adversative, or contra- 
dicting, term. 

(22) "The limestone occurs resting [rests] upon the quart z- 
ite." 

(23) "These dikes were found cutting [cut] the granite." 

(24) "The cliff rises facing [faces] the river." 

The choice of the wrong subject-nominative leads to wordi- 
ness: 

(25) "The drainage of the area is accomplished [drained] 
by three streams." 

(26) " The collection of the statistics is done [are collected] 
by correspondence." 

Delete the first three words in each of the two foregoing 
sentences. 

(27) "Confirmation of these reports cannot be obtained 
[confirmed]." 

As says George M. Wood,* from whom the three pre- 
ceding examples are borrowed: 

"The writers of these sentences, having 'used up their 
verbs' in their subject-nominative, could find no suitable 

* 'Suggestions to Authors' by George McLane Wood. U. S. Geological 
Survey. An extremely useful pamphlet. 



' SLOVENLINESS 121 

predicate-verbs and were compelled to employ instead more 
auxiliaries or inappropriate words." 

The use of 'due' at the beginning of a sentence in the sense 
of 'attributable' is a common error, for the reason that a causal 
phrase, which is adverbial, should not be introduced by an 
adjective. 

(28) "Z)w6 [owing] to the psychological attitude of labor 
[Labor] and the scarcity of skilled operatives, it is far more 
difficult than ever before to secure high efficiency." Delete 
"psychological", which is redundant. 

(29) "Such problems are nearer solution, due [thanks] 
to the researches of Bragg and others." 

(30) "This is explained by the fact that this substance, 
due to [in consequence of] the predominating effect of the 
calcium, coagulates the slime." 

(31) "Due to the nature of the ore, it is expected to obtain 
a smelting ratio of seven of ore to one of coal." 

Here 'due to' stands for 'in consequence of or 'owing to'. 
Again : 

(32) "Due to the rise in copper, many mines are being 
re-opened in this district." 

Those who fall into this bad habit are also likely to begin 
their statements thus: 

(33) "Indicative of the success of the method is the cost 
which is now 60 cents per ton." 

This can be improved: 

"The success of the method is indicated by the low cost, 
which is now only 60 cents per ton." 

'Tend' is a word that prolongs a sentence without adding 
to the sense. Many writers enfeeble a verb by inserting the 
superfluous 'tend'. 

(34) "The use of flotation tends to aid [aids] the saving of 
copper in chalcocite ores." 

(35) " Such methods tend to cheapen [cheapen] the operation." 
Unemphatic words at the beginning of a sentence usually 

precede roundabout statements: 



122 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(36) ^^ Because the surface tends to contract with a definite 
force does not mean that it is coated with anything hke a rubber 
membrane." 

It would be better to write: 

''The fact that the surface contracts with a definite force 
does not prove that it is coated with anything hke a rubber 
membrane" or ''The contraction of the surface does not mean 
that it is coated, etc." 

Here is another example of a poor beginning: 

(37) "5t/ such a system I beheve we could establish a 
toreign trade based on honesty of goods which other nations 
would find it hard to take from us." 

Here "by" is a weak introductive. He means: 

"Such a system, I believe, would serve to establish a foreign 

trade so well based on honesty of goods that other nations would 

find it hard to compete with us." 

'While' is another little word much misused. Instead of 

being restricted to its primary function as an adverb of time, 

it is employed as a conjunction synonymous with 'whereas', 

'though', 'but', or 'and'. 

(38) ^^ While [whereas or although] coal and iron command 
high prices, oil has become cheaper." 

(39) "At some points the ore is 4 feet wide while at others 
it narrows to 6 inches." 

Insert a semicolon after "wide" and delete "while". 
'Along these lines' and 'along this line' is a common crudity. 
It is neither precise nor clear. 

(40) " Examinations along these lines were made every 
year." 

"Examinations of this kind (or for this purpose) were made 
every year." Perhaps "similar examinations" would express 
the meaning, which is still left in doubt. 

(41) "The development of the mine along this line is sure 
to prove successful." 

"The development of the mine in accordance with thi& plan 
is sure to prove successful." 



SLOVENLINESS ' rz'6 

(42) ''Investigations along petrographic lines are not 
needed." 

"Petrographic investigations are not needed." 
'Occur' and 'occurrence' are over-worked, especially by 
geologists. They are words to be used sparingly. 

(43) "The other mineralogical occurrence [mineral] I found 
in the Gila Canyon Consolidated Copper Co.'s mine." 

(44) "There are seldom any signs of secondary copper 
enrichment, unless it be the occasional occurrence along cracks 
of pyrite." 

He means: "Signs of sulphide enrichment are rare, except 
where the pyrite has been deposited along cracks." "Occa- 
sional occurrence" suggests time; he means place; here and 
there the pyrite was detected by him along the cracks. 
"Cracks of pyrite" is a bad phrase. 

(45) "The gold occurs [is] distributed over a large area." 

(46) "The fluorspar mines occur [are] in Pope and Hardin 
Counties." 

Usually 'occur' takes the place of a word that is more 
specific. 

(47) "Hardwood trees occur on these slopes." 
The word he needed was 'grow'. 

(48) "In parts of the mine where the fault occurs, the veins 
are shattered and impoverished." 

He means that where the veins are crossed by the fault, 
they are shattered and poor in gold. 

(49) "The telluride occurs in [lines or encrusts] the interior 
of the cavity." 

A 'cavity' is a void, considered with reference to the cir- 
cumjacent material. "The telluride encrusts the cavity." 

(50) "Underlying this decomposed garnet in the formerly 
barren crystalline lime [are] the secondary zinc ores occur.'' 

Delete 'occur' and end the sentence with a significant word. 

Writers who overwork 'occur' are likely to introduce their 
statements with 'there is' and 'there are', both of which are 
poor locutions — the mere tuning of language. 



124 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(51) ''Wherever the galena occurs there is an increase of 
silver in the ore." The man that wrote thisfailed to say where 
or how the galena was distributed in the lode or vein, and thus 
omitted a necessary item of information. 

''Wherever the galena is seen, there the ore is richer in 
silver. 

(52) "Small packages can be easily carried and there is 
not the incentive to drop them by the carriers." This can be 
amended thus: 

"Small packages can be carried easily, therefore the carriers 
are not tempted to drop them." 

(53) "There are few Cornishmen employed at Treadwell." 

(54) " I question whether there is any probability of succeed- 
ing with this process." 

These statements may be improved thus: 
"Few Cornishmen are employed at Treadwell.'* 
"I question whether the process can succeed." 

(55) "There are more men killed in metal-mining in the 
United States, in proportion to the number employed, than in 
the country's coal mines." 

Here ' there are ' merely detracts from the force of the state- 
ment; start with "More men are killed" and note how much 
more direct and forceful it is. 

'It is' belongs in the category of feeble introductions. 

(56) "It is the belief of the miners that the ground now 
worked may be a slide." 

"The miners believe that the ground etc." 

(57) "It is a sign of richness in gold when the quartz is 
ribboned." 

"The ribboning of the quartz indicates richness in gold." 
Begin and end a sentence with an emphatic word, as far as 

may be practicable without stilting the phraseology. 

Avoid redundancy. In the following examples the italicized 

words should be deleted: 

(58) "The railway should be finished in nine months 
time." 



SLOVENLINESS 125 

(59) ''It requires several weeks or months time to treat the 
ore." 

(60) ''The mine is three miles distant from the mill." 

(61) "Timbers are set at a distance of 4 ft. 2 in. centre to 
centre." 

(62) "The peak is 12,750 ft. high above sea-level." 

(63) " Manganese if present can be precipitated at the same 
time as the iron." 

It must be present in order to be precipitated. 

(64) "It is best to use zinc sheets 2 feet by 3 feet in size." 
Do not attempt to be impressive by piling one word on 

another. 

(65) "Records were started with this ultimate end in 
view." 

(66) "He cannot return home before the final completion 
of the mill." 

(67) "This oil will serve equally as well as oleic acid." 

(68) "The roasting will require probably about seven hours 
time." 

Study the meaning of words so that you will not employ 
'evince' or 'evidence' when you mean 'show'; 'phenomenal' 
when you mean 'extraordinary'; 'transpire' for 'become 
known'; or 'problematical' for 'doubtful'. As you obtain 
literary taste, you will abhor 'advent' as a synonym for 'in- 
troduction' or 'arrival'; 'situation' for 'state'; 'eliminate' 
for 'extract'; 'avoid' for 'destroy'; 'proposition' for 'pro- 
posal'; 'contemplate' for 'plan' or 'intend'; 'balance' for 
'compensate'; and 'unethical' for 'improper'. 

(69) "The stamp-mill held its own until the advent [intro- 
duction] of the cyanide process." 

(70) "The treatment of the pyritic copper ores awaited the 
advent [application] of modern smelting methods." 

(71) "The cyanide situation [scarcity of cyanide] in Northern 
Ontario." 

(72) "A tramway will be built around Mineral lake to 
eliminate [avoid] the use of barges." 



126 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(73) ''The proposition [proposal] made by the union was 
rejected." 

(74) "The erection of one smelter and the completion of 
others now contemplated [planned or proposed]." 

(75) '' It would be unethical [improper] to disclose my reason 
for withdrawing from the case." 

(76) ''The natural expectation would be that they [each] 
(Carranza and Villa) will each [would] start in to eliminate 
[destroy] the other." 

No man with a right feeUng for language would be guilty 
of such lapses. Acquire good taste by reading good literature : 
Huxley and Spencer, Thoreau and Lowell. Read ' The Atlantic 
Monthly ', ' The Outlook ', and ' The World's Work ', not the 
magazines that adopt the language of the street. 

If you read only second-rate stuff, you will lose the taste 
for good English, and the quality of your own writing will suffer, 
until you may even be guilty of such lapses as the following : 

(77) "There are companies arranging to install commercial 
size units of several new inventions. It is far from probable 
that all these schemes will prove successful and therefore one 
anticipates hearing of disappointments experienced by the 
pioneers in this work." 

He may have meant to say : 

"Several companies are arranging to erect working units 
based upon new inventions. It is unlikely that all these 
schemes will prove successful, and one may anticipate that the 
pioneers will suffer many disappointments." 

(78) "In practically every instance, operators plan to make 
the fuel item a self-contained proposition." 

He is speaking of oil-shale, and he means : 

"Most of the operators plan to use the shale itself for fuel." 

(79) "These often contain cassiterite, sometimes in profit- 
able quantities, but long before the water sorted gravels are 
reached the wolfram has disappeared, though it comes from the 
same lodes as the tin ore where it almost invariably occurs in 
considerably greater quantities." 



SLOVENLINESS 127 

Probably he meant: 

''In many localities these alluvial deposits contain suf- 
ficient cassiterite to be mined profitably, but long before the 
water-sorted gravel is reached the wolfram has ceased to appear, 
although it is derived from the tin-bearing lodes, in which 
it is invariably the predominant mineral." 

That may not have been his meaning; the worst of such 
writing is not its ungainliness but its obscurity. It may not be 
intended to be beautiful, but it certainly is intended to convey 
information, and in that it fails. 

(80) '' In a cross-cut on the 14th level in ground to the east 
of the main drift along the line of the larger ore shoot a vein 
of quartz was struck, which on being followed soon developed 
values, and further on extraordinary values." 

Would you think of engaging the services of an engineer 
showing so Httle intelligence? He may have meant to say: 

''On the 14th level a cross-cut going eastward from the main 
drift, that is, the one along the line of the larger ore-shoot, 
struck a vein of quartz, which, on being followed, began to show 
ore and a little farther yielded ore of extraordinary richness." 

(81) "There has never been any doubt that the problem 
of dry concentration would some day be solved and its present 
successful advent should not be passed by without at least an 
investigation." 

Was it the "advent" or the "problem" that merited atten- 
tion? How does one 'pass by' an 'advent' even in the dark? 

"It never was doubted that dry concentration would some 
day prove successful, therefore this latest experiment is well 
worthy of attention." 

Use words so that each one may be significant. We keep 
different tools for different kinds of work, thereby gaining 
efficiency. Keep each word to its allotted task. Do not dull 
the edge of a chisel by using it as a screw-driver. 

'Differentiate' refers to a physical process of becoming 
different; it is not a correct synonym for 'discriminate' or 
'distinguish'. 



128 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(82) "It would not be fair to differentiate [discriminate] 
against him." 

'Designate^ is to specify or particularize, not to choose, 
appoint, or name. 

(83) ''He designated [appointed] Jones foreman." 
'Visualize' is to make visible, to imagine vividly, not to see, 

describe, or illustrate. 

(84) "He was unable to visualize [imagine] the horrors of 
War." 

'Discount' is to deduct from an amount or make allowance, 
not to expect, anticipate, or offset. 

(85) "The manager discounted [anticipated] the caving of 
the stope." 

These examples should serve as warnings to the engineer, 
who nowadays makes a fetish of efficiency, and writes articles 
upon it in ineffective language. 

An American provinciaHsm that is gaining ground is the 
use of a geographic noun as an adjective, thus: 

(86) "A California [California n] mining engineer '\ 

(87) "The Alaska [Alaskan] method of drift mining.'* 

Our daily papers show such head-lines as 'Good Italy 
Harvest'; 'Great Albania battle'; 'U. S. Victory'. In these 
the corresponding adjective is desirable: Italian, Albanian, 
American. Undoubtedly such newspaper usage is corrupting; 
technical writers should take care not to copy the habits of 
the ilHterate. 

Careless writers, with a fondness alike for the abstract word 
and the unnecessary plural, also show a preference for vague 
terms when precise ones are available. They use the present 
participal of a verb in place of the noun itself; thus 



capping 


instead of 


cap 


cropping 


11 


outcrop 


filling 


(< 


fill 


faulting 


it 


fault 


heavy stulling 


11 


big stulls 



SLOVENLINESS 129 

(88) "A capping [cap] of leached monzonite covers the ore/' 

(89) ''There are [is] no croppings [outcrop] of the vein to 
guide the prospector." 

(90) ''The fillings [fill] in the old stopes can be milled at 
a profit." 

Abstraction is carried to inanity by scribblers who change 



nations 


into 


nationalities 


authors 


(( 


authorities 


events 


(( 


eventualities 


persons 


" 


personalities 


characters 


(( 


characteristics 



It is well to look askance at words ending in 'ism^ 'istic^ 
and 'ization', for they come of a vacuous tribe.* 

Technology knows no political boundaries. The part of it 
written in English goes around the world. We exchange freely 
with the British and their cousins overseas. The English 
language is the common heritage alike of the American and 
the Briton, both of whom befoul it with vulgarisms and colloqui- 
alisms that are understood only locally or regionally. In order 
that technical literature may pass current wherever our language 
is spoken, and even in foreign countries where it has to be 
translated laboriously, it is our duty to discard local terms or 
provincial phraseology. For example, 'reef as used for 
'lode' in Australia and 'ledge' as used for 'vein' in California 
are both objectionable terms. An orebody underground 
has no resemblance to the rock that imperils navigation, nor 
does a vertical outcrop resemble a shelf, f 

The Australian puts his ' mullock ' [waste rock] in a ' paddock ' 
[enclosure] while the American puts his 'dirt' [ore] in a steel 
'tank' [bin]. The 'mullocker' at Bendigo is equivalent to the 
'mucker' at Tonopah, and each is a 'shoveler' in good English. 
I need not multiply examples of bucoUc terms and illiterate 

* Allbutt. Op. cit. Page 144. 

t A 'ledge' of oil-shale is correct, because the shale is nearly horizontal 
and projects from the face of a hill like a shelf. 



130 TECHNICAL WRITING 

localisms. They disfigure technology and obstruct scientific 
thought. Why should a scientific man — for that assuredly 
describes the mining engineer — go to the illiterate workman 
for his terms? If you wish to learn how to break rock ask 
the Cornish or the Italian miner, by all means, but if you wish 
to use the delicate instrument of expression accurately ask 
those who are trained in the art. As graduates of a university 
you are expected to obtain your terminology from the library, 
not from the stope ; you should shape your phraseology on that 
of the college, not on that of the bunk-house. 

(91) ''These tanks [steel bins] have proved satisfactory, 
especially to the mill-men, who are relieved of all ore-bin 
muckingJ' 

He means that they are relieved of the labor of shoveling 
inside the ore-bin. 

Such adoption of local vulgarisms by careless writers may 
be defended by shallow critics as one phase of that absorption 
of new elements by which a language grows. Of course, the 
English language is a living organism fed continually out of 
the varied human experience of our peoples — the American 
and British predominantly, but also the others who speak it 
across the seven seas. All of which in no wise excuses a literate 
engineer in displacing recognized technical terms by half-baked 
provincialisms. 

To write well you need self-restraint — a grip on yourself. 
The notion prevails in some quarters that it is effeminate to use 
words with nicety, that the practical man is expected to fling 
them about him with careless vigor. That is a mistake. An 
educated man is discipfined in words as in conduct. Indeed, 
the self-discipline of writing is a splendid training for any engi- 
neer. It teaches him how little he knows accurately, and spurs 
him to gain a more thorough understanding. The turbid pulp 
in a mill is made clear by passing through classifiers and settlers, 
so that the metal is precipitated in a pure and crystalline form. 
Similarly ideas, odds and ends of information, stray bits of 
observation, if passed through the mind in the act of writing 



SLOVENLINESS 131 

are co-ordinated, classified, and systematized into workable 
shape, into definite form, ready for immediate use. 

In technology we should try to keep each term for a specific 
duty. 

' Locate ' and ' location ' should be restricted to the delimit- 
ing of a claim. If we use these words in other senses, we cause 
confusion. 

(92) ''He located the mill on Deer creek." 

Did he ' locate ' a mill-site or did he build a mill on the creek? 

(93) ''The superintendent located [found] the ore-shoot on 
the fifth level." 

(94) "He is now located at Silverton." 
"He lives at Silverton now." 

(95) "The mine is located in Northern Rhodesia." 

Delete 'located', or substitute 'situated'. 

'Carboniferous' and 'carbonaceous' have different mean- 
ings. They should not be used interchangeably. 'Carbon- 
iferous' referred originally to the geologic division of time 
associated with the formation of coal, but all Carboniferous 
strata do not contain coal. It is now simply the name of a 
geologic period, and is given a capital 'C 'Carbonaceous' 
means carbon-bearing, or containing carbon; it may be used 
to describe a black shale. A rock may be both Carboniferous 
and carbonaceous, as in Missouri, where a limestone belonging 
to the period immediately succeeding the Devonian is black 
with the product of decomposed vegetal [not 'vegetable'] 
remains. 

'Calcining' and 'roasting' are not synonyms. The first 
should be applied to a process for removing carbon di-oxide 
from carbonates, such as limestone, or for dehydrating a 
hematite ore; the second should be restricted to a process for 
the expulsion of sulphur by heat in the presence of oxygen. 

'Tank' is a term sadly over-worked. It means a large 
vessel used for storing liquid. A large vessel employed for con- 
ducting a chemical process may better be called a 'vat'. This 
distinction is not often observed, but it can be made to advan- 



132 TECHNICAL WRITING 

tage in technical writing. Recently the word 'tank' has been 
used for a cylindrical steel ore-bin. This use only serves to con- 
fuse. An engine of war lately devised has been called a 'tank', 
although it is more like a glyptodon or some other monster of 
the primeval slime. We can forgive the 'boys' in the trenches 
anything, but not the metallurgist that calls an ore-bin a 
'tank,' as if in mockery of these dry days. 

A 'chute' is a sloping channel down which material is 
passed; a 'shoot' is an orebody of recognizable shape and in- 
clination in a lode. 

Those who consider such distinctions of no consequence will 
call a machine for getting rid of slime a 'slimer', ignoring the 
fact that the suffix 'er' indicates an agent, so that a 'slimer' 
is a thing that makes slime. The process of 'de-sliming' is 
conducted on a 'slime-table'. The same scribbler would talk 
of ' dewatering ' a shaft, ignoring the fact that we use ' unwater ' 
to signify that operation, while we use 'dewater' to indicate 
the removal of excess water in a pulp. Again, consider the dif- 
ference between 'recovery' and 'extraction'. In subjecting 
a copper ore to concentration the percentage of the copper in 
the concentrate is a 'recovery', but it is not an 'extraction', 
for that is the work of the smelter. By using technical terms 
thoughtfully we increase our vocabulary; the careless use of 
words means the loss of distinct meanings; on the other hand 
the discriminating use of words assists accurate expression. 

'Section' is often used improperly. A section is a division 
of the public land containing 640 acres. It is also the view along 
an imaginary slice of anything, like a geologic section or the 
section of a machine, intended to exhibit the interior. We ought 
not to use it as a synonym for 'region', 'district', or 'locality', 
as in: 

(96) "The South-West is an arid section [region]." 

(97) "In this section [district] the mines produce gold only." 
Engineers should keep technical words for appropriate 

uses, otherwise they lose their special significance. A ' tuinicl ' is 
a gallery or bore that goes through a hill or mountain from 



SLOVENLINESS 133 \ 

daylight to daylight, as a railway tunnel does. A level that 
enters a mountain from the surface, to become the main artery 
of a mine or to drain the water from the underground workings, 
without going through to the other side of the mountain, is 
an 'adit' — a term used by miners from time immemorial. 

It is well to note that mistakes are rarely solitary; like 
sorrows ''they come not single spies, but in battahons". Let 
me impress upon you the fact that if you are careless about one 
detail — apparently unimportant — you are hkely to take no 
thought about others. Whether or not you accept my dictum 
concerning the use of this or that word or the rejection of this 
or that method of statement is of minor importance as compared 
with your acceptance of my general argument: that it is 
worth while to use words precisely and to build sentences 
logically. The man that learns to master the little words will 
acquire mastery over the big phrases. Genius has been called 
an infinite capacity for taking pains. The definition is incom- 
plete, but it recognizes the first requisite of all good workman- 
ship : the effort to be thorough. 



XI. JARGON. 

The dictionary defines 'jargon' as ''barbarous or debased 
language". This description does not suffice. Quiller-Couch 
has said, it is "a kind of writing which, from a superficial 
likeness, commonly passes for prose in these days, and by 
lazy folk is commonly written for prose, yet actually is not 
prose at all.'' The two main vices of jargon, he says, are "that 
it uses circumlocution rather than short straight speech", like 
the Babu who reported his mother's death by saying: "Regret 
to inform you, the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the 
bucket." Its other chief vice is that "it habitually chooses 
vague woolly abstract nouns rather than concrete ones", hke 
the newspaper statement, "He was conveyed to his place of 
residence in an intoxicated condition", instead of saying, 
"He was carried home drunk." Jargon is "an infirmity of 
speech", it is not journalese, but akin to it. "Like respect- 
abihty in Chicago, jargon stalks unchecked in our midst" 
and renders much technical writing ridiculous. It deals in 
periphrasis instead of going straight to the point, it loves the 
abstract rather than the concrete, it dabbles in w^ords of sound 
rather than meaning. Avoid it, despise it, if you purpose earn- 
estly to write well. "In literature as in life he makes himself 
felt who not only calls a spade a spade but has the pluck to 
double spades and re-double."* 

Jargon is rampant in technical publications. Catalogues 
and other advertisements are conspicuous offenders, but with 
these the critic is not concerned, except in so far as such 'write- 
ups' pretend to follow the style set by technical journals and 
by the transactions of technical societies. Here is an example, 
taken from a reputable paper: 

* These quotations are from a lecture delivered at Cambridge by Sir 
Arthur Quiller-Couch. 'The Art of Writing'. 1916. 

134 



JARGON 135 

(1) "The next proposition was to take out the rock to a 
depth of 20 ft. and build up an underpinning wall to carry the 
weight of the caisson and make the permanent seal to keep out 
all water. To avoid the possibility of jarring loose any of 
the temporary sealing blocks or breaking back under them the 
rock which was of a slatey nature, this excavation was started 
by channeling out for a depth of 5 ft. all around the shaft 
about 1 ft. inside of the blocking. The rock was then taken 
out in the ordinary manner with two shaft-bars and four rock- 
drills in operation. To further prevent the jarring of this block- 
ing the rock was taken out in 5-ft. benches only. This made 
the work necessarily slower, but it was deemed advisable and 
so proved, for, notwithstanding the care exercised, certain 
leakages occurred which made the rock excavation slow on 
account of the shifting of pumps, taking off and putting back 
suction pipes, etc. This rock, as above mentioned, was a species 
of sand slate which would break back a considerable distance 
from the line of holes." 

I shall not attempt to revise it, for it needs to be re-written 
by one possessing the detailed information that the writer has 
attempted, unsuccessfully, to impart. To many it may not 
seem utterly bad, but it is obvious that only absolute need of 
the information would induce anybody to read it. 

The foregoing example shows how the English language is 
mishandled in America; now I shall give you an example to 
show how our language is maltreated in the country of its 
origin. The following quotation is taken from a book on petro- 
leum recently pubhshed in London. 

(2) "In this vaporizer, which works efficiently with any of 
the refined flash-proof lamp oils, the mixture is only heated to the 
comparatively low temperature of 300° to 400"" F., in which con- 
nection it is well to understand that the more perfectly an oil 
is atomized the lower is the temperature necessary to its 
combustion, which is an advantage, if not off-set by the neces- 
sity for a more than corresponding complexity of apparatus, 
which in this case, as will be seen, requires an air pump and for 



136 TECHNICAL WRITING 

the fuel to be contained in a tank subject to a pressure of 8 to 
15 lbs. per square inch; and this again obviously necessitates 
a separate hand pump, or a pressure supply for starting." 

The errors are so many that the entire paragraph needs to 
be re-written. Why does he hyphenate 'flash-proof and not 
' lamp oils ' and ' air pump ' or ' hand pump ' ? He uses ' which ' 
with irritating frequency; he employs the abstraction 'com- 
plexity of apparatus' instead of the concrete 'complex appara- 
tus', besides a plain error of grammar, namely, "requires . . . 
for the fuel to be contained." The writer is an educated engi- 
neer, but he disregards the obligations of an educated man. 

Here follows an attempt to describe the operation of a 
machine-drill in a mine: 

. (3) "Following the shooting, the mucker begins his work, 
the drill man climbs to the top of the muck, and by the time the 
four feet of ground shot down is mucked out, he is again ready 
to shoot his round of holes." 

"Muck", "muck", "muck" — it is the very muck of writing. 
The word means filth or manure. It is used as a synonym 
for 'dirt', the miner's term for broken rock. Thus 'muck' 
refers to the shattered rock resulting from blasting, which is not 
in the least filthy. Shovelers, that is, those who shovel the 
broken rock into the car at the face of a level or cross-cut, are 
now called 'muckers'. What gain is there? 'Shoveler' is 
significant, 'mucker' is the rubbish of words. 

The next example comes from a description of the small 
locomotives used in mines. It reads: 

(4) "Face gathering, wherein the locomotive must enter the 
room, imposes conditions which call for distinctly special 
treatment in the design and equipment of a locomotive of high 
efficiency. The ordinary haulage locomotive in nearly all cases 
is totally unfitted to this work, which involves operation in 
narrow quarters, around sharp curves, over poorly laid tracks, 
etc. The locomotive of real value in room work is one which, 
by reason of proportions and construction, will go wherever a 
mine car will run, and with equal faciUty. It must be compact, 



JARGON 137 

no wider than the wheels, with short wheel-base and small 
wheels, and without long overhang at either end." 

This is the sort of thing that makes a technical description 
seem hke a cryptogram or a slab of picture-writing from 
Nineveh. To any one versed in the subject of locomotives 
for underground use, this paragraph is inteUigible, but only 
that. It succeeds in making the subject as uninteresting as 
possible and places the meaning as much beneath the surface 
as the locomotive itself. 

The last two examples come from ' write-ups ', the trade name 
for a eulogistic description of a manufactured article, prepared 
in the interest of the manufacturer and written by a man more 
accustomed to the use of a screw-driver than a pen. The 
worst writing concerning technical matters is to be found in 
such disguised advertisements. They ought to be attractively 
written, to serve their purpose; in failing to do so, they illus- 
trate the essential ineffectiveness of bad writing. 

Grammatical correctness is no excuse for a statement that 
is likely to cause trouble to your reader. He must have your 
consideration always if you expect to be recognized as an ef- 
fective writer. A technical journal states: 

(5) "The specifying by a mining company that no man may 
be employed by it unless he be a member of such an organiza- 
tion, though undoubtedly legal, is as contrary to social justice 
as the specifying that no member of any organization will be 
employed, or the refusing to recognize any employee as repre- 
senting anyone or anything except himself as an individual." 

That reminds one of a passage in 'AHce in Wonderland'; 
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it 
might appear to others that what you were or might have been 
was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared 
to them to be otherwise." 

Here is more technical writing of a supposedly serious sort: 

(6) "The expenditure involved is only justifiable with the 
assured certainty of very large ore reserves having values 
materially above operating costs." 



138 TECHNICAL WRITING 

"The expenditure involved would be justified only by the 
certainty of an adequate reserve of profitable ore." 
A respectable engineer writes: 

(7) ''They would go to the lay-out and see if it was checked 
out; if found out to be laid out, the lay-out foreman would spend 
his time in looking for it, and if he could not find it he would get 
out a new one." 

Such stuff is a disgrace to the profession; moreover, it is 
proof of such want of intellectual power as to argue against the 
possession of technical understanding. 

Shun outworn figures of speech, like 'a bolt from the blue', 
'the swing of the pendulum', 'the cry is still they come', 'after 
us the deluge', 'the Mecca of their pilgrimage', 'the Phoenix 
from his ashes', 'open Sesame', and 'the labors of Hercules'. 
They rarely give point to technical description; usually they 
are mere tags, in the reporter's style — a style to be scrupulously 
avoided in technical writing. Abstain from the use of such 
verbal inanities as 'festive', 'pristine', 'erstwhile', 'material- 
ize', and 'eventuate'. These are precious to the reporter, 
but taboo to the intelligent writer. 

Take note of the fact that nonsense remains nonsense how- 
ever much you may disguise it in a veil of words. We think 
in words, and when we lack clear words we lack clear thoughts. 
Clear thinking is necessary to effective speech or writing. 
The forceful utterances and keen analyses to be remarked 
occasionally in men devoid of academic training show that the 
question of clear statement depends upon logic. Correct 
speech — grammatical speech — is logical speech. The following 
is a quotation from an address delivered by a prominent finan- 
cier in San Francisco: 

(8) " Let us learn, then, to realize that each has his dominion 
and his empire of domination, in which by the exercise of these 
qualities that are alike in spelling success each may rise to a 
position of leadership, with potentialities of power as great in its 
sphere of action as that one of the many, to whom we look for the 
time being, because of some particular preferment as a leader." 



JARGON 139 

This is balderdash. It is "the dehrious trimmings" of 
language. 

Early Victorian elegance has no place in technical writing; 
for example: 

(9) ''The ore was relieved of its moisture through the 
medium of drying kilns." Meaning that: 

"The ore was dried in kilns." 

Nor do we want late Nevadan uncouthness: 

(10) " With the installation of the new air-compressor under- 
ground development is being prosecuted more rapidly." 

Is the air-compressor underground or is it being used for 
development underground? Should a comma come before or 
after the word 'underground '? The rapid progress is not being 
made "with the installation" of anything, but by the new 
compressor, operating more machine-drills. You do not 
prosecute a development; for that involves the pursuit of an 
abstraction. 

(11) "The tributer is assisted in the prosecution of his work 
by being given supplies." 

'Prosecution,' in this context also, is a foolish word, apart 
from being an abstract noun. Slovenly writers who use such 
words also use too many others. He meant to say: 

"The tributer is assisted in his work by being given 
supplies"; meaning candles, dynamite, caps, and fuse. 

(12) "Gold Mountain was turned down by a succession 
of eminent engineers." It would be more to the point to give 
the names of some of the engineers. 

(13) "He extracted the gold in the residue, thus doing away 
with [obviating] the necessity for [need of] re-handhng it." 

It was not the 'necessity', but the 're-handhng', that he 
wished to avoid. Was it the gold or the residue that he was 
trying not to 're-handle'? He meant to say: "He extracted 
the gold in the residue, thus avoiding re-treatment." 

Slovenliness in writing is due not to poverty of ideas but 
to careless thinking. It may escape censure because the major- 
ity of readers are uncritical and too patient. Given a careless 



140 TECHNICAL WRITING 

writer and an equally careless reader, you have a perform- 
ance about as profitable as a lecture to the deaf. 

(14) ''The Lake Superior copper mines are making a good 
recovery from the disorganized condition in which the long 
persistence of the strike put them." 

Here you have the abstract phrases "the lon^ persistence" 
and ''making a good recovery" instead of a concrete statement 
saying that the strike had lasted long and that work at the mines 
had been resumed. ' Mines ' is not the real subject of this 
statement, but the work being done in them. He — and he 
was an editor — meant to say: 

"The working force at the Lake Superior copper mines is 
being re-organized and operations are being resumed after the 
long strike." 

Statements that seem intelligible and are accepted by the 
patient reader without protest may yet fail to convey informa- 
tion accurately; and the docile reader — for every man that sub- 
mits willingly to the attraction of an article, and reads it, 
is in a docile mood — either loses interest presently because of 
the vagueness of the discourse or struggles against the obstacles 
of clouded style until he is inclined to attribute the difficulty 
to a temporary mental inability of his own. The headaches 
of young students in their struggle to conquer knowledge from 
text-books are due more to the defective literary technique 
of the writers of the text-books than to difficulty inherent in 
the subject or to stupidity on the part of the learners. 

(15) "The vein is a quartz fissure with a width of 1 to 6 ft., 
a dip of 50° to the north, and a filling of galena, sphalerite, 
pyrite, and chalcopyrite." 

How can it be a fissure filled with quartz — for that is a 
quartz fissure, not a fissure in quartz — if it is filled with the 
four other minerals specified? Nor is the fissure attached to a 
width or a dip. He meant : 

"The vein is from 1 to 6 ft. wide, it dips 50° north, and con- 
sists of quartz containing galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and chal- 
copyrite." 



JARGON 141 

'Encounter' Is a word greatly over-worked. It means to 
meet hostilely or in conflict. The use of it in varying senses 
tends to vagueness. 

(16) ''The rocks indicate to the miner when encountered the 
general lower limits of the volcanics." 

He means that where (not ' when ') a particular rock is found 
underground, there the lower limit (not 'limits') of the volcanic 
series is indicated. Therefore he might have said: 

"These rocks, wherever found in the mine, indicate that 
the lower limit of the volcanic series has been reached." 

(17) "The ore-bearing volcanics are seemingly of more 
importance to the district from a gold-producing standpoint than 
was at first supposed." 

He meant that the volcanic rocks had a greater influence 
upon the deposition of gold in the district than had been sup- 
posed. He used 'seemingly' three times in eight hues of his 
manuscript, and you can infer from that how careless he was. 

(18) "Some difficulties ai3 encountered by the formation of 
sodium sulphate in the roasting furnace, which dissolves to- 
gether with the sodium chromate." 

Here 'encounter' means 'caused'. The wrong use of 
'which' makes the writer state that the furnace 'dissolved'. 
The omission of the hyphen suggests that the furnace was 
'roasting'. 'Together' is redundant. What he meant to say 
was: 

"During the process of roasting, sundry difficulties are 
introduced by the formation of sodium sulphate, because it 
dissolves with the sodium chromate." 

All these pluralities, generalities, and abstractions are the 
mark of jargon. As Quiller-Couch says: "To write jargon 
is to be perpetually shuflfling around in the fog and cotton-wool 
of abstract terms: to be forever hearkening, like Ibsen's Peer 
Gynt, to the voice of the Borg exhorting you to circumvent 
the diflficulty, to beat the air because it is easier than to flesh 
your sword in the thing." 

Avoid extravagance. One of the chief obstacles to precision 



142 TECHNICAL WRITING 

in writing is prolixity, the employment of superfluous words. 
Shy at such phrases as 'with regard to', 'in respect of, 'at 
the same time', 'as a consequence of, 'in connection with', 
'from the standpoint of, 'on the basis of, 'of such a character', 
'to any extent', 'according as to whether', 'on the whole', 
'more or less', and so forth. Occasionally one or another of 
these unlovely locutions may be useful or necessary, but 
resort to them grudgingly, treating them as first cousins to 
jargon, which is the newspaper prostitution of our language. 

(19) '^With regard to the process, the principal difficulty 
that arose in connection with the operation of it was the large 
amount of dust; the success of it therefore depended as to 
whether it could, or could not be collected without incurring 
a more or less prohibitive expense." 

The 17 words underlined are mere 'empties' in the train of 
thought. Note too the careless use of ' it ' ; the first and second 
refer to ' process ', but the third refers to ' dust '. He might have 
said: 

"The success of the process depended upon the economical 
collection of the dust made during the operation." 

(20) " For it is well known that man's methods are ever 
changing while Nature's laws upon which they depend are 
invariable." 

Two unnecessary and insipid clauses are interjected under 
the false impression that they give dignity to the statement. 
How much stronger it sounds thus: 

"For while man's methods are ever changing, Nature's 
laws are immutable." 

(21) "Mistakes in assaying are far commoner than is 
generally thought to be the case.^^ 

"Mistakes in assaying are more common than is generally 
supposed." 

(22) "Perhaps a few notes as to some of my experience in 
connection with mining in Colombia will be of interest." 

"Perhaps a few notes on my mining experience in Colombia 
will be interesting." 



JARGON 143 

(23) ''The special difficulty in the case of flotation arose 
in connection with the treatment of the concentrate." 

This might be changed to 

''The special difficulty in using flotation presented itself 
when treating the concentrate." 

Or, preferably, 

"The main obstacle to the use of flotation was difficulty in 
treating the concentrate." 

(24) ''Any lumps of more or less [nearly] pure chalcocite 
were but superficially altered." 

A mining journal says: 

(25) "A particularly striking thing of the last Anaconda 
report is the exhibit of that company as the great metallurgical 
concern that it is.'' 

The superfluous words are indicated. The statement can 
be amended thus: 

"The latest Anaconda report exhibits that company as a 
great metaUurgical concern " or 

"This report exhibits the Anaconda as a great metallurgical 
enterprise." 

Another author wrote thus: 

(26) "So far as the writer is aware, the process has not been 
applied to any ore in this country, but there can be no doubt 
that there are many instances where it could be successfully 
apphed." 

This is a windy performance. What he wanted to say was : 
"So far as I know, the process has not been tried in this 

country, but there must be many ores to which it could be 

applied successfully." 

(27) "Probably flotation is due to a combination of phe- 
nomena which [that] are rather high in the scale of complexity." 

"Probably flotation is due to a combination of complex 
phenomena." 

(28) " From the standpoint of [according to] this theory." 

(29) "This is too important a matter to be treated from a 
careless point of view [carelessly]." 



144 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(30) "From a genetic point of view the genesis of the coral- 
line limestone have [has] been most carefully studied." Delete 
the words italicized. 

The last three examples are borrowed from * Suggestions to 
Authors' by George M. Wood, the editor of the U. S. Geologi- 
cal Survey. 

Such words as 'case', 'instance', 'nature', 'degree', 'char- 
acter', and 'condition' should be used sparingly and with 
discrimination. 

(31) "So in the case of these veins we have present a reversal 
of the unusual case where native copper turns to sulphide in 
depth." 

This statement is typical of a kind of jargon that mas- 
querades as ornate speech. He meant to say: 

"Thus these veins reverse the experience usual in mining, 
namely, the change from native copper to sulphide mineral in 
depth." 

(32) "In the case of copper it is not advisable to leach the 
ore." 

"It is inadvisable to leach the copper ore." 

(33) "The surface is of a very uneven character.'^ 
Delete the words italicized. 

(34) "The soft nature [softness] of the rocks." 

(35) "The lowlands in some cases [places] contain lakes, the 
most conspicuous instances being Crystal, Glen, and Portage 
lakes. 

Here 'instances' is an elegant variant of 'cases'. It should 
be deleted. 

(36) "This is the only instance in the district of a copper 
mine that is wholly in the granite." 

"This is the only copper mine in the district that is wholly 
in the granite." 

(37) "/n every case an alteration product should be identi- 
fied with extreme care." Delete the words italicized. 

As Mr. Wood suggests, the victim of this habit of using 
'cases' and 'instances', or some other similar abstract term, 



JARGON 145 

should ask himself what he means by the word. What is the 
concrete thing about which he is writing? He is Hkely to 
discover that he is indulging in mere verbiage. 

(38) ''The miners returned to work in most instances." 
They went to work in overalls. He meant: ''Most of the 

miners returned to work." 

(39) "Even in Carboniferous areas, only in one or two 
instances do the veins carry ore." 

Substitute 'places' for 'instances'. Perhaps he means 
"only one or two veins carry ore.' 

(40) "The accident was due to the dangerous nature of 
the work and the fissile character of the rock." 

It was not; the accident was due to the weakening of the 
rock by fissuring and the sudden fall of a large piece upon the 
miner working below. 

(41) "A singular degree of mineralization marks the dis- 
trict." 

Meaning that "intense mineralization characterizes the dis- 
trict." 

(42) "The auriferous mineralization is distributed through- 
out the ore and consists of metallic gold and gold associated 
with iron pyrites." 

This is thoroughly bad, from beginning to end. 'Minerali- 
zation' is the condition of being mineralized; how can a condi- 
tion be 'auriferous', that is, gold-bearing. Next, how can 
'mineralization' be distributed throughout the ore; it is an 
abstract idea; he means gold, thus: 

"The gold in the ore occurs free and associated with iron 
pyrite." 

The word 'situation' is beloved by jargoneers; it is a type 
of the abstract, of the general, and of the woolly. 

(43) "To meet this situation [difficulty] as it developed, 
sand-filling [the filling of slopes with sand] was introduced in 
1908." The same writer continues: 

(44) " Previous to this date some of the older mines had 
been showing signs of movement, and it became evident that 



146 TECHNICAL WRITING 

preparation was necessary to meet this tendency, which was bound 
to increase in intensity as mining progressed." 

'Tendency' goes well with 'situation'; both are abstract 
terms, the mere fog of an idea. He meant to say: 

" Previous to that year some of the older workings had shown 
signs of movement, so that it became evident that a syste- 
matic effort must be made to check the settling of the ground, 
a condition sure to become worse as mining progressed." 

(45) "He first went to Goldfield to examine a mining situ- 
ation [mine] and then located [remained or resided] there for 
good." 

To examine a situation is like fighting a chimera. 
"He first went to Goldfield to report on a mine, and decided 
to live there." 

(46) "This serious situation with respect to dye-stuffs has 
been splendidly met by the chemists of the country." 

"This serious need of dye-stuifs has been met splendidly 
by the chemists of the country," or 

" This serious deficiency in dye-stuffs has been overcome with 
splendid success by the chemists of the country." 

(47) "The situation in regard to fuel is so alarming as to 
call for the most careful consideration." 

He means: "The shortage of fuel at this time is so alarming 
as to demand serious thought." 
The same writer continues: 

(48) "Our greatest [best] opportunity for success in meeting 
the fuel situation [escape from the dilemma] lies in eflficient 
combustion." 

A mining lawyer writes: 

(49) "An apex could not exist in situations [under condi- 
tions] not greatly dissimilar [similar] to those in the Jim Butler 
case." 

(50) "The labor situation is passing through a period of 
unrest." 

'Situation' is a mere abstraction; it is 'labor' that is un- 
restful. 



JARGON 147 

(51) ''He took an option on an interesting situation [promis- 
ing prospect] on Canyon creek." 

(52) "He liked the situation [the mine or property] and de- 
cided to invest his money in it." 

Probably he speculated with his money; to the unthinking 
a 'speculation' is synonymous with an 'investment'. 

(53) "The easing up of the oil situation was in sight." 
"The passing of the crisis in the oil industry was assured." 
As might be expected, the jargoneer loves such an abstract 

term as 'values'. 

(54) "In my tests made with a view of [to] studying the 
form in which lay the values [the gold and silver exist] in such 
tailings I have been unable to detect any values [precious metals] 
in the tailing from our ore." 

How would he make tests to determine "the form" of the 
gold and silver until he had ascertained the fact that they 
existed in the tailing? When a writer makes such statements, 
he is not to be trusted. 

'Problem' is another word dear to the jargoneer in search 
of abstractions with which to obscure his want of accurate 
knowledge. 

(55) "One of our serious problems is clean water." 

He means: "One of our chief hindrances (or handicaps) is 
the lack of clean water." 

(56) " The problem presented by this difficulty engages the 
attention of metallurgists." Delete the words italicized. 

(57) "The water problem is a drawback to concentration." 
"The large amount of water required is an obstacle to con- 
centration." 

'Standpoint' is a jargonistic decoration. 

(58) "The portion of the range that is of interest from 
an economic standpoint extends due east and west about six 
miles." 

"The portion of the range that is of economic interest ex- 
tends due east and west for six miles." 

'Eliminate' is another first cousin to jargon. 



148 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(59) ''The presence of barite or gangue will in most cases 
eliminate the possibility of using gravity concentration." 

He was writing about oil-shale. 

"The presence of barite or other heavy minerals will usually 
prevent the use of gravity concentration." 

(60) ''One company has succeeded in treating this shale 
in a small retort, and is contemplating the installation of [plan- 
ning to erect] a larger plant." 

To ^contemplate the installation' is pure jargon. 

(61) "The method has been employed in connection with 
the Herreshoff furnace installation.'^ 

"The method has been applied to Herreshoff furnaces." 

(62) "The problem of water-losses was taken up coincidently 
with the stack-loss determinations." He is referring to the 
metallurgy of quicksilver. 

" The loss in water was investigated at the same time as 
the loss in fume." 

It is likely that many of the examples quoted by me will 
seem to you by no means bad; in fact, they represent the kind 
of writing that is so common as hardly to call for comment by 
those whose critical faculties have not been awakened; yet, I 
assure you, the avoidance of just such jargon is essential to 
good writing. Jargon defeats its purpose; the thought fails 
to reach its destination; the cross-currents distract the tired 
reader's attention, they interrupt the vo3^age of his thought, 
which drifts with the flux of words and becomes stranded at 
length on a shoal of verbiage. Brevity is the soul of wit; 
conciseness is the essence of clarity; every unnecessary 
word tends to obscure. 



XII. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES. 

In order to write clearly — that is, so as to be understood 
beyond question — you should know not only what your words 
denote but how to build your sentences: you must not only 
choose your words carefully but you should construct your 
sentences properly. To achieve proper construction, you must 
obey the laws of syntax, because the meaning of clauses and 
sentences depends upon the order of words. A sentence is a 
combination of words that expresses thought : it says something 
about something. A clause is a subordinate sentence; it is 
part of a larger sentence. The Greeks call an editor a avvraKj-qs 
(suntaktes), he who assembles the parts of a sentence. Hence 
our word ^syntax' for the branch of grammar that treats of 
the sentence and its construction. English is essentially a 
non-inflected language ; and in that respect it is unlike not only 
Latin and Greek but its modern rivals, French and German. 
This lack of inflections, to indicate the relation of words, 
makes it supremely necessary that in English our words shall 
be placed in correct order, for we depend upon the order to 
indicate the sequence of thought. Any deviation from the 
logical sequence may endanger the meaning; for example: 

When spies were feared in England at the beginning of the 
War a local paper stated: 

(1) ''The authorities are now looking for a gray motor- 
car driven by a woman who is thought to have a wireless appara- 
tus inside." 

A technical journal announced: 

(2) ''We pubhsh an article on errors latent in the sampling 
of mines by Mr. Blank." The mention of the author should 
have followed "article". 

(3) "He blew out his brains after bidding his wife good-bye 
with a shotgun." 

149 



150 TECHNICAL WRITING 

(4) ''Mrs. Smith was killed on Wednesday morning while 
cooking her husband's breakfast in a shocking manner." 

(5) ''The owner of this property fishes and shoots himself." 

(6) "The concentrating table was covered by the foreman 
with a new face of rubber." 

(7) "The samples were preserved for analysis in a paraffin- 
sealed flask." 

(8) "Care should be taken to see whether such wells are 
contaminated by frequent analyses." 

The foregoing examples of incoherence break the rule 
that "the relation of each word and each clause to the context 
should be unmistakable." Another rule says: "Clauses that 
are grammatically connected should be kept as close together 
as possible." As a further warning I quote the following: 

(9) "The expedition, which left Fairbanks March 13, ex- 
pected to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley early in May, 
but was delayed three weeks cutting a passage three miles long 
through ice with hand-axes thrown across the ridge by an 
earthquake last summer." 

That must have been a weird earthquake! it threw hand- 
axes across a ridge! Even if you place "with hand-axes" 
after "passage" you find yourself saying that the hand-axes 
were "three miles long". Note the slovenliness of style: the 
omission of 'on' before "March 13," of 'while' before "cutting", 
and of 'it' before "was delayed". The statement can be 
amended thus: 

"The expedition . . . was delayed three weeks by having 
to cut with hand-axes a passage three miles long throug^h ice, 
which had fallen across a ridge in consequence of an earth- 
quake last summer." 

Place clauses in their logical order; the inversion of ideas 
is confusing. 

(10) "Combined with geological abiUty of an unusual 
degree, he was an all-around engineer." 

No sensible man talks in this way; the phrasing is stilted 
and obscure. It is better to say: 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 151 

"He was not only an all-around engineer, but also an ex- 
cellent geologist." 

(11) ''Due to the richness of the new orebody on the 
tenth level, the mine has paid dividends." He means that: 

"The mine has been able to pay dividends, thanks to 
the richness of the new orebody on the tenth level. " 

(12) "Compared with what I had seen in Nevada, Rho- 
desia is a poor goldfield." This may be changed to: 

"I would consider Rhodesia a poor goldfield, as compared 
with Nevada." 

Take care that your demonstrative pronouns are made 
to refer to the right thing. 

(13) "A number of mines have adopted the use of cars to 
take the place of 'cans'. These hold from 1500 to 2000 lb. 
apiece." 

The second sentence refers to the 'cars', not the 'cans'. 

"A number of mines have substituted cars for cans. Each 
car holds from 1500 to 2000 lb." or 

" In a number of mines the 'cans' have been replaced by 
cars, each holding from 1500 to 2000 lb. 

(14) "Because a process is cheap does not prove it desir- 
able." 

(15) "It is because he was a scientific man that he insisted 
upon research." 

In these two examples the causal clause is made substantive, 
thereby producing an awkward inversion. It would be better 
to write: 

"A process is not desirable merely because it is cheap." 

"He insisted upon research because he was a scientific 
man." 

Kelley says: * "It should be insisted on again and again 
that if two forms of expression are both open to criticism, the 
chances are very large that something else could be better than 
either. Begin anew, and hammer out for yourself a sentence to 
which you can think of no reasonable objection. So a young 
* James P. Kelley, 'Workmanship in Words'. 



152 TECHNICAL WRITING 

writer learns his trade, and so a veteran keeps his style fresh 
and clean." 

I should delete 'on' after 'insisted'; also the 'very' before 
•'large'; again, I should avoid the preposition-verb 'think of 
and say "a sentence to which you can see no reasonable objec- 
tion". However, the advice is admirable. 

Do not compare things with qualities, the concrete with the 
abstract. Correspondence in form promotes lucidity and ease 
of statement. 

(16) "He saw these issues more clearly than any [other] 
man." 

(17) "No other man in the country has done more to 
advance the study of economic geology." 

In the first quotation the 'other' is needed; in the second, 
it is out of place. 

An intelligent interest in the rules of composition need 
not stiffen the writer's manner, nor make him pedantic. 

Connectives should be placed carefully, and when used 
in couples they must correspond. 

Both, and; 

(18) "I went both because I feared and because I hoped." 
Either, or; 

(19) "The division of profits made by either govern- 
ments, banks or industries." 

Delete 'either' and insert a comma aftei 'banks'. 
Not only, but also; 

(20) "This was not only according to law, but also accord- 
ing to justice." 

On the one hand, on the other hand; 
Neither here nor there. 

(21) Either in the city or in the country. 
Do not omit to repeat the preposition. 

(22) "Poets are either born in London or remote country 
places." 

The 'either' is misplaced and 'in' is omitted before 're- 
mote'. 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 153 

"Poets are bom either in London or in remote country 
places." 

Neither, nor; 

(23) "I looked neither forward or back.'^ 
This likewise contains an error. 

'' I looked neither forward nor back." 

These seem small matters to the slovenly writer, but they 
are of the essence of clear writing. As Kelley says: 

''No great difference? There is no great difference between 
lifting two pounds and lifting one pound; but I will not have 
my shoes weighted with lead. In the single and simple case, 
no great difference; but construct a complicated sentence in 
defiance of the laws of thought, or a long discourse with con- 
stant disregard of what is normal in structure and formally 
clear, and the reader will be wearied and repelled unless your 
work is in other respects so good as to please him in spite of your 
slovenliness — and even if you please him, very likely you will 
have failed to make him understand you, and thereby to 
persuade or convince or instruct him as you would wish to do." 

Young writers drift easily into long sentences, entan- 
gling their ideas in a wilderness of words. They shun the 
short sentence, preferring to link one thought to another 
by the aid of many 'ands', as an after-dinner speaker ekes 
out his lame remarks with a frequent 'urr' or 'err'. To err 
is human, to forgive divine; but it is hard to condone the 
unnecessary 'and'. Don't be afraid of short sentences or of 
using the period. 

(24) " This quality of diffusion indicates molecular mobility; 
and a good example of this is furnished by etc." 

"This quality of diffusion indicates molecular mobihty, 
a good example of which is furnished by etc." 

(25) "The methods employed in the underground work 
vary with the nature of the ore deposits and have been de- 
veloped to suit the local conditions encountered in the various, 
mines." 

This is verbose and confused. 



154 TECHNICAL WRITING 

"Mining methods have been developed to suit local con- 
ditions, as modified by the varying structure of the ore deposits." 

(26) ''At the Zaaiplaats tin mine the cassiterite has mainly 
occurred in the Red granite ; and, the author particularly notices 
that the color of granite round the pipes was often of a much 
deeper red; and, that a great deal of tourmalinization had 
taken place." 

This requires several corrections: ''At the Zaaiplaats 
tin mine, the cassiterite is found chiefly in the Red granite. 
The color of this granite is deeper in places around the pipes 
[ore-chimneys], where also tourmalinization is marked." 

Such sentences are written by men that cannot claim lack 
of experience in writing. Here is a shocking example from the 
'Times', of London: 

(27) "The cities we remember from childhood, un visited 
since, grow in our minds and become glorious and visionary. 
The memory itself is only a material which the mind uses, as 
in dreams it uses some fact of waking hours. There was a 
bridge, perhaps a mean iron bridge, and a few trees, and some 
decent houses beyond it. But all the mean details are for- 
gotten, and the scale is so altered that the bridge seems to have 
spanned a deep valley with great arches, and to have been a 
causeway leading into a city of palaces and overshadowing 
trees. And along the causeway crowds were drawn into the 
city and traffic coming from a great distance, as if to a festival. 
And there is a memory also of the sky itself as momentous — 
towering clouds flushed with the sunset, and the causeway 
shining after rain, and all the people in the streets enjoying 
the beautiful hours, with music [that was really a German 
band] adding a glory of sound to the glory of light and form 
and movement." 

The excessive use of 'and' spoils an excellent piece of 
writing. 

'And' is used as a feeble continuative by writers uncer- 
tain of the relation between their ideas. 

(28) "Jackson went and examined the pump." That 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 155 

might be true; he might have gone toward the pump and 
then incidentally he might have examined it; but what the 
writer really meant was: 

"Jackson went to examine the pump." 

(29) " He told him to be sure and [to] attend to this matter." 

(30) " When costs in California and Europe were compared — 
$75 here and [as against] Spanish mercury imported at $40 
per flask — it became evident that an import duty was desirable." 

(31) "It is sometimes [may be] found that the screening 
from one lot of ore is sufficiently rich to be shipped with the 
selected ore and [whereas] that from the next lot will be too 
poor." 

(32) "Practically all the belts are 30 in. wide, 7-ply, and 
have 3^ in. rubber cover on the carrying side, and yg in. on 
the pulley side." 

We see what he means, but it can be said more clearly: 
"The belts are 7-ply and 30 in. wide; they have a yg in. 

cover of rubber on the carrying side and i^ in. on the pulley 

side." 

(33) "The mining world is indebted to the initiative of 
John Wiley & Sons for meeting so great a want, and they 
have been fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Peele as 
the guiding spirit to translate the conception into achievement." 

Here the ^and' is introduced to correct a badly organized 
statement. When re-written it reads thus: 

"John Wiley & Sons have placed the mining world under 
obligation by their initiative in meeting so great a want, and 
they have been fortunate in securing, etc." 

(34) "Wet methods of treating the concentrate were not 
at all satisfactory, as there was a large amount of black residue 
in the concentrate that could not be decomposed by sulphuric 
acid and ferrous sulphate, and which carried high silver values." 

If 'which' is replaced by Hhat', the last clause would refer 
back to 'residue', but the chief fault lies in tying an important 
assertion to the end of the opening statement by means of the 
'and'. He means: 



156 TECHNICAL WRITING 

''Wet methods of treating the concentrate proved unsatis- 
factory because it contained a large proportion of black resi- 
due, rich in silver, that could not be decomposed by sulphuric 
acid and ferrous sulphate." 

(35) ''It is obvious that the calculations can be shortened 
when one set of apparatus and conditions are used continu- 
ously for analyses." 

He is connecting unlike ideas in a confusing manner. 

"It is obvious that the calculations can be simplified by 
using the same apparatus under identical conditions during a 
series of analyses." 

Sentences without logical connection should not be linked 
by a feeble 'and'. The reason for the connection should be 
made clear by using the proper connective or by inserting an 
explanatory clause. 

(36) "For the retorting of lean shale, the Scottish retort 
gives fairly satisfactory results, but it is by no means perfect, 
and [although] it has been claimed that it is possible to so [so to] 
improve the retort as to make it less costly both to construct 
and to operate." 

(37) "It is certainly not wise to construct small plants 
which are to be operated to recover both oil and nitrogen 
contents, and it will be especially poor business should it be 
also necessary to manufacture the acid required for the pro- 
duction of ammonium sulphate." I suggest: 

"Certainly it is not wise to erect small plants that are 
to be operated to recover both the oil and the nitrogen con- 
tents, more particularly in a locality where it becomes neces- 
sary also to make the acid required in the production of 
ammonium sulphate." 

Adjectives should follow each other in the order of thought. 

(38) "The orebodies are easily mined and large." 

The 'easy mining' is a consequence of 'largeness', and 
that is the order in which the adjectives should be given. 

(39) "The ore is subjected to costly and prolonged treat- 
ment." 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 157 

The idea of costliness follows upon the prolongation of the 
treatment. 

Such inversion of adjectives is tiresome to the reader and 
detracts from the force of the statement. 

Place subordinate words in less emphatic positions, leaving 
the important words where they are clear and disentangled 
from other words that clog them. Avoid emphasis on words 
that do not "deserve distinction." Monosyllables usually 
make a feeble ending for a sentence. Lord Shaftesbury, in 
his 'Advice to an Author', says: ''If, whilst they [writers] 
profess only to please, they secretly advise, and give in- 
struction, they may now, perhaps, as well as formerly, be 
esteemed, with justice, the best and most honorable among 
authors." 

That is a complex sentence so well arranged as to be per- 
fectly clear. 

Adverbs are commonly misplaced. Put the modifying 
word as near as possible to the word that it modifies. "The 
ore should properly be dried" does not mean that "the ore 
should be dried properly". The first refers to the need of a 
particular operation, the other to the need of conducting the 
operation in a particular way. "The words and groups of 
words that are near to one another in thought should be near 
in expression, and those that are separate in thought should be 
separate in expression." * 

(40) "Such errors are frequent in the writings even of good 
authors." 

The "even" should follow "frequent". 
'Only' and 'always' are commonly misplaced. 

(41) "His exordium would have been admiriable if he 
only had spoken; but Mr. Asquith's significant reference 
to future relations aroused speculation instead of stilling it." 
'New Republic'. 

' Only ' should precede ' he ' ; the writer means that it would 
have been better for the purpose if Mr. Lloyd George had 
* A. S. Hill. 



158 TECHNICAL WRITING 

been the only speaker. As it is, the sentence expresses the wish 
that he had spoken. 

(42) ''The internal-combustion engine has been intro- 
duced on a large scale in refrigerating plants only in the last 
three years." This is correct, but it would be clearer if the 
'only' came after 'years'; the statement might be taken to 
mean "in refrigerating plants only". 

(43) "It is necessary to always roast the ore before chlorin- 
ation" and "It is necessary to roast the ore always before 
chlorination " are both objectionable. In the first, 'always' 
splits the infinitive; in the second, it qualifies the wrong word. 
The sentence should read: 

"Before chlorination, it is necessary always to roast the 
ore." This introduces 'chlorination' ahead of 'roasting' and 
is preferable to "It is necessary always to roast the ore before 
chlorination," because the necessity for roasting arises from the 
use of chlorination; therefore the ideas should be expressed 
in that order. As a grammarian would say, "Before chlorina- 
tion" is the antecedent clause, and "it is necessary, etc." is 
the consequent clause. 

Do not bring two verbs, belonging to different sentences, 
into close contact, as in the following quotation from the 
'New RepubHc': 

(44) "What the more serious evils of that policy are was 
revealed by the election." 

It were better to have written: 

"The more serious evils of that policy were revealed by the 
election." 

I shall not castigate the split infinitive; the use or non- 
use of it is a matter of taste. You should try not only to 
avoid splitting the infinitive but to keep your verbs intact. 
Thus do not say "The ore has never been so cheaply milled" 
but "The ore never has been milled so cheaply." In the first 
the verb "has been milled" is dismembered into three parts by 
the intrusion of the adverbs. 

The split infinitive, however, is more than a breach of 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 159 

good taste, despite the sanction of usage as cited by an eminent 
critic* It suspends the sense. A similar error is that of 
interpolating words between the definite article and the noun, 
as in ''the already deep shaft has been sunk another hundred 
feet." Those who write thus are also Hkely to say: 

(45) ''We today find nothing peculiar in this." 

The emphasis is on 'today', which therefore should come 
first, instead of separating 'we' from 'find'. It is curious 
that such splittings, of the infinitive and of other verb phrases, 
are usually em^ployed for emphasis, which can be obtained much 
better by other locutions. Such suspensions are "ugly in form 
as they are awkward in sense." f 

Here is one from the ' New Republic ' : 

(46) "Our men of wealth have accepted profits and income 
taxation with a better grace than those of any European nation, 
with the exception of England." 

The reader wonders why it is necessary to say that rich 
men have accepted "profits and income", and is jarred by the 
statement, before he reached the word 'taxation'. The quo- 
tation is an example of sloppy writing. 'Rich men' is better 
than "men of wealth"; 'except' is better than "with the ex- 
ception of". The writer wallows in indirect reporter-like 
phraseology. He might have written: 

"Our rich men have accepted the taxation of their profits 
and incomes with better grace than those in Europe, except 
the English." 

Similar suspensions are common in technical writing. 

(47) "As between fine and coarse ore crushing, he recom- 
mended the Gilpin county type of deep-mortar long-drop 
stamps." 

Here the interposition of "fine and coarse ore" suspends 
the sense until "crushing" is reached; similarly a long adjec- 
tival phrase intervenes between "recommended" and "stamps". 

"As between crushing fine or coarse, he recommended 

* Lounsbury. 

t Allbutt. Op. cit. Page 82. 



160 TECHNICAL WRITING 

stamps of the Gilpin county type, that is, a deep mortar and 
a long drop." 

(48) ''In the hard ground at Miami it is advisable to use 
a wide shrinkage slope and pillar system." 

Here the five words preceding ''system" are used as an 
adjective, suspending the sense too long. It would be better 
to write "system of wide shrinkage-stopes and pillars". 

(49) "In sending in orders it was very necessary to give 
full shipping and lyiarking directions." 

'In' and 'very' are redundant. The four words preceding 
'directions' are an adjectival jumble. He might have written: 

"In sending an order it was necessary to give full direc- 
tions for shipping and marking." 

Directness of statement is an aid to clearness. As Horn 
Tooke said: " The first aim of language is to communicate 
our thoughts; the second, to do so with dispatch." 

(50) "So the new order strikes at the root of much of 
the difficulty that has disturbed the industrial world since 
the War began by applying only to the unskilled. ^^ 

The clause italicized should come after 'order', which 
it explains. 

(51) "It might have been appropriate to have developed 
[provided that] these particular resources of manganese and 
platinum, so forcibly cited as an argument for shoving the 
Bill through the Senate, [should be developed] under the direct 
control and management of a Government bureau for the 
pecuniary benefit of the actual owners in law and equity." 

Here the principal word ' developed ' has been misplaced, so 
as to mar the directness of statement. 

(52) "What is regarded as a significant fact is that as yeX, 
the President has not yet oflticially announced the re-establish- 
ment of the present price as effective from June 1 to August 15, 
although the War Industries Board has so recommended." 

It was the disregarding of the recommendation by the 
Board that was the significant fact, therefore the statement 
should be re-arranged thus: 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 161 

"It is significant that the President, notwithstanding the 
recommendation of the War Industries Board, has not yet 
announced the official re-estabHshment of the present price 
effective from June 1 to August 15." 

(53) ''An appHcant had to file a copy of these regulations, 
to show that they had been compUed with." 

He means: 'Ho show that he had complied with them." 

(54) "Before a hole drilled in the manner described is 
blasted, the hole is sprung by exploding in the bottom of the 
hole several charges of dynamite." 

The clause "drilled in the manner described" is inter- 
jected awkwardly; it is superfluous. The statement can then 
be corrected thus: 

"Before the hole is blasted, it is 'sprung' by exploding 
several charges of dynamite in the bottom." 

'Sprung' is treated as an unfamiliar term and is explained 
by the last clause; therefore the single quotation-marks are 
desirable. 

(55) "After a hole has been chambered sufficiently, the 
amount of which depends on the depth of the hole, the hard- 
ness and the tenacity and the volume of the rock to be broken, 
the hole is loaded for the final blast." 

This statement contains several unnecessary inversions. 
The comma after the second ' hole ' is not followed by a second 
comma after 'hardness', so that the continuity of the state- 
ment is broken. He might have written : 

"The hole is loaded for the blast after it has been chambered 
sufficiently, this depending upon the depth of the hole, as well 
as upon the hardness, tenacity, and volume of the rock to be 
broken." 

You will find it advantageous to place sundry adverbs, 
especially those of time or place, either at the end or at the 
beginning of a clause, gaining emphasis thereby. Thus: 

(56) "Lately the ore has been crushed to 100-mesh" or 
"The ore has been crushed to 100-mesh lately." 

The first is preferable; either is better than 



162 TECHNICAL WRITING 

''The ore has lately been crushed to 100-mesh." 
(57) "The vein is frequently faulted along the upper level." 
Here the idea to be expressed is the repetition of faulting 
particularly on the upper level, therefore re-arrange thus: 
"Along the upper level, the vein is faulted frequently." 
So the most significant words are placed in the most promi- 
nent positions, at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. 
'Along the upper level' and 'frequently' are emphasized. But 
'frequently' carries the idea of time; substitute 'at many 
places'. 

Aim at correct emphasis, but do not carry the effort to 
the extent of cultivating a mannerism. My purpose, in 
analyzing the foregoing examples, is to suggest the undesir- 
ability of separating the parts of a verb by an adverb or an 
adverbial clause. It has become common to say: 
"It certainly is" 
"It sure did" 
and it is just such vulgarisms that mislead the student into 
illiteracies from which he finds it difficult to escape. 

The habitual use of slang, including a decorative kind 
of profanity, is detrimental to the acquirement of skill in the 
correct expression of ideas. Slang beggars the vocabulary; 
profanity ignores it. The word 'damned' has to stand for a 
host of adjectives and things 'go to hell' in a thousand ways. 



XIII. COMPOSITION. 

Do not write until you have something to say. Think 
first; then write. In order to be understood, you must know 
what you wish to say. Clear writing is the consequence of clear 
thinking. Therefore consider your subject well before you 
begin to write; ruminate on it; marshal the salient facts in 
your mind ; saturate yourself with the ideas you wish to express 
and with cognate ideas; then express yourself deliberately. 
If you are bubbhng over with your subject the words will 
come, but you might as well expect to sail without a breeze 
as hope to give life to words without the living thought. 

Endeavor to visualize the things to be described; consider 
their relations to one another; let your mind dwell upon the 
particular phase of their relationship that is to be the subject 
of your writing. Then prepare an outline of the argument 
or of the successive stages of the description. Begin the writing 
with a general statement of the subject to be discussed. Try 
to strike a clear note; do your tuning where it will not annoy 
the reader. After making the general statement, proceed to 
details. Make them vivid; keep them distinct. Then draw 
your inferences and play upon them until they lead naturally 
to a definite conclusion, which should embody the purpose and 
purport of what you have written. 

Before beginning to put your ideas in writing, charge your 
memory with the words, technical terms, and phrases that will 
furnish the means for effective expression. To acquire an 
adequate vocabulary, read what others, preferably good 
authors, have written on the subject or on a kindred subject. 
An artist is not expected to utter the message in his soul until 
he has mastered the technique of his instrument, neither can 
a writer be expected to express thought fluently and pleas- 
antly without acquiring the technique of language. 

1()3 



164 TECHNICAL WRITING 

Let Macaulay be your model. Professor Hill says of him: 
''What he saw at all he saw distinctly; what he believed he 
believed with his whole strength; he wrote on subjects with 
which he had long been familiar; and he made lucidity his 
primary object in composition. For him, in short, there was 
no difficulty in securing clearness except that which is inherent 
in the nature of language. This difficulty he overcame with 
unusual success, as all his critics admit, and one of the severest 
of them, John Morley, says that he 'never wrote an obscure 
sentence in his life'." 

Sentences are said to be of two kinds, the periodic and the 
loose; but this dictum serves only to illustrate the fallacy of 
dichotomous division, even though it have the authority of 
all the rhetorics to back it. The foregoing statement was 
constructed as an example of the so-called 'loose' composition, 
because the sense is not sustained unbroken to the end; it 
could have ended at an earlier pause. A periodic sentence is a 
product of the art of neatly packing the items that it is to carry 
in such a way as to leave no loose ends. The foregoing sen- 
tence is 'periodic' — that is, it ends wdth the completion of its 
period. However, the terms ' periodic ' and ' loose ' are generally 
applied to longer and more complex sentences. All good sen- 
tences should show a careful ordering of their parts with a view 
to effective expression. To follow persistently one form of 
construction savors of affectation. Both forms have their charm 
when used by a master ; both are used variously by every 
author. Model your style on Macaulay rather than on Mere- 
dith, on Emerson rather than on Henry James. 

Short sentences are easier to write and easier to under- 
stand than long ones. " The longer the sentence the more ardu- 
ous its architecture."* The long sentence is difficult to manage, 
but it enables the writer to assemble a group of related ideas 
into a coherent whole and to make a complete unbroken im- 
pression. Variation in the length of sentences is essential to 
an agreeable style. Avoid an excess of short asthmatic sen- 

* Allbutt. 



COMPOSITION 165 

tences; avoid also long sentences that are packed with a mass 
of unsorted and unrelated ideas. 

A paragraph should be devoted to one main idea, and it 
should either begin by introducing the idea that it is intended to 
develop or its beginning should suggest the direction in which 
the thought is to move. Here again Macaulay is a good ex- 
emplar; so is Ruskin. The end of the paragraph, or the last 
sentence, should complete the preceding thought and bring it 
to a definite conclusion. The thoughts expressed in the in- 
termediate sentences, not too insistently, linked by well- 
chosen connectives, should pass by easy transition through 
successive steps in the climax to the conclusion. ''In Shake- 
speare one sentence begets the next naturally; the meaning is 
all inwoven. He goes on kindling like a meteor through the 
dark atmosphere." * 

Technical writing is devoted largely to description and 
exposition. " Good arrangement is at least one-half exposition. 
Order is often equivalent to explanation." In describing a 
machine it is advisable to consider the parts in logical order, 
that is, in the order in which they are set in motion. In 
describing a mill the description should follow the flow-sheet. 
In explaining the origin of an ore deposit the physical processes 
and geologic movements supposed to have been at work in 
the making of it should be discussed in the sequence of their 
natural operation. 

Comparison is indispensable in technical description. 
By references to similar things the reader is helped to under- 
stand the thing described. An ore deposit is elucidated by 
mentioning its points of similarity and dissimilarity as com- 
pared with other deposits likely to be known to the reader. 
Machines and processes are made inteUigible by comparing 
them with those with which the reader and the writer are 
both familiar. Facts by themselves have little meaning; it 
is in their relation to other facts that we find their true sig- 
nificance. 

♦Coleridge. 'Table Talk'. 



166 TECHNICAL WRITING 

The poor quality of much of the technical writing of today 
is due, I believe, to the intervention of the stenographer. 
Dictation tends to develop diffuseness and repetition. Many 
find it easier to use the mouth in talking than the hand in 
writing. That is why the average dictated letter, unless it 
be edited and re-written, is verbose. An author who uses pen 
or pencil can see what has gone before and can compose with a 
consecutiveness that is conspicuously absent in a dictated 
composition. Technical men accustomed to dictating their 
correspondence find it difficult to write an article in long- 
hand; so they dictate the article also; and the consequence 
is that the article resembles the dictated letter in failing to be 
closely knit, clear, or logical. Henry James is said to have 
dictated his later writings, and this may account in part for 
their involved style. My own practice is to write with a 
soft pencil on paper that is not too smooth. The dipping of a 
pen into the ink introduces an artificial interruption — annoying 
if it comes in the middle of a sentence. Besides, the point of 
the pen being hard, the fingers soon tire. The penciled manu- 
script is given to a typist, and the clean typewritten copy is 
then revised carefully before it goes to the composing-room. 
The first draft, the typewritten copy, the printer's proof, each, 
in turn, represents a stage of increasing dignity in the develop- 
ment of an article. The earlier a correction is made the better. 
In former days many of the minor corrections, of speUing and 
punctuation, even of grammar, were made in the composing- 
room or the printing-office. The real editors were the type- 
setters or the proof-readers. But that practice is becoming 
obsolete. 

Some writers find it convenient to jot down notes on sepa- 
rate cards or small sheets of paper and then arrange them in 
orderly sequence. I advise you to try this method. Others, 
especially the more practised writers, dispense with such 
aids. As a rule, the beginner will be wise if he prepares an 
outline of what he intends to write, so as to give sequence and 
proportion to his treatment of the subject. 



COMPOSITION 167 

Clever men think more rapidly than they can write; stupid 
men write more rapidly than they can think; a good writer will 
form the habit of regulating the speed of his thinking so that it 
keeps step with the order of his writing. The abihty to syn- 
chronize the movements of the brain and of the hand is acquired 
by experience, which, in time, creates a habit. As Ben Jonson 
said: "The best writers in their beginnings imposed upon 
themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly; they 
obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and 
a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to 
them more plentifully; their words answered, their composi- 
tion followed; and all, in a well-ordered family, presented itself 
in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes 
not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing." 



XIV. STYLE. 

Technology has no recognized rank in what is called 
polite literature; the subject-matter of engineering is not 
supposed to lend itself to artistic treatment : we are the hewers 
of wood and drawers of water to the high-priests of learning 
who live on the cold summit above our humbler dwellings. 
Therefore the hierophants smile at the notion of 'style' — 
''that curiously personal thing" — in technical writing. The 
''great art" of Pater, the "inevitable phrase" of Raleigh, the 
"note of distinction" that Arnold demanded, are said to be 
beyond the scope, as they are supposed to be beside the need, 
of a writer on geology or engineering. This is a narrow view. 
Science, no less than belles lettres, calls for the highest flight of 
the human intelligence; the art of writing should be employed 
as skilfully and as thoroughly in a description of the structure 
of the Sierra Nevada, or of the construction of a tunnel through 
the range, as in a rhapsody welcoming the rosy fingers of the 
dawn. 

The idea still lingers that fine writing does not befit tech- 
nology, even though the masters of the Victorian period — 
Huxley, Tyndall, Ruskin — proved that science is worthy to be 
arrayed in the best robes that the looms of thought can weave. 
At the beginning of these lectures I quoted Barrie's remark 
touching the inability of the scientific man to express himself. 
That imputation has been passed to the technologist, whose util- 
itarian pursuits are supposed to make him too clumsy for the 
refinements of human speech. We may not have acquired the 
self-consciousness of those writers on Art whose "power of 
expression is so cultivated that their sensual caterwauhng may 
be almost mistaken for the music of the spheres"; nor can we 
imitate the politicians, who have the abihty to speak far beyond 
anything that they may have to say; but we too have a litera- 
ture; a literature that is a gold mine of human experience, 

168 



STYLE 169 

and we have a conscious aim to use our great inheritance, the 
English language, in furthering our purpose. Therefore, I 
submit, we are justified in discussing a matter even so recondite 
as 'style'.* 

The engineer joins the essayist, the historian, and the poet 
in bowing to the greatest of all definitions of style: Buffon's 
" Le style est Vhomme meme " — style is the man himself. Good 
writing is natural; great writing is sincere. Artificial rules 
can no more furnish style than a man ''by taking thought 
can add one cubit unto his stature." Not long ago I had the 
pleasure of editing an article on the discovery of cyanidation 
contributed by one of the originators of that process. The 
article was written without affectation, with a directness and a 
charm characteristic of the author of it. A correspondent in 
AustraUa wrote saying: "The charm of which you speak is 
characteristic of all good writing, whether on familiar or 
professional subjects. One might also conclude that such 
qualities of sincerity and kindliness alone can account for liter- 
ary excellence." The persons concerned in this story are not 
famous — it was not Tyrrell talking to Carlyle about Swift, for 
example — but the episode serves to explain Buffon's saying 
"Style is the man himself." Buffon also said: "Ideas alone 
are the foundation of style", and Stevenson left a saying that 
is worth many rules: "If a man can group his ideas, he is 
a good writer." Without the ideas to bind his assorted facts, 
the writer fares no better than the Israelites in Egypt when they 
were expected to make bricks without straw. Given the 
ideas, the next step is to group them so as to achieve that 
"perfect lucidity" which Carlyle imputed to Swift. Then 
comes the search for the fitting word — "^e mot propre " of Flau- 

* "The word 'style' is derived from the instruroent (stilus) of metal, 
wood, or ivory, by means of which, in classic times, letters and words were 
imprinted on waxen tablets. By the transition of thought known as 
metonymy the word has been transferred from the object which makes 
the impression to the sentences which are impressed by it, and a mechani- 
cal observation has become an intellectual conception." Gosse. 'Ency- 
clopedia Britannica'. 



170 TECHNICAL WRITING 

bert — the word that belongs to the thing described, the precise 
epithet. This was one of Shakespeare's great gifts. So, 
working backward, we have the proper word, the word in its 
right place, the idea that gives life to a sequence of words, and, 
behind all, the soul of a man. 

You may have heard of the author that was obsessed by 
an unattainable ideal of style. James Huneker tells us that he 
dreamed of '4ong sweeping phrases, drumming with melody, 
cadences like the humming of slow uplifting walls of water 
tumbling on sullen strands". Do not permit yourself to enter- 
tain such an idea; it is not within the province of the technical 
writer, and will lead only to insincerity. Sincerity is the key- 
note to good writing. Those ''lines of chiseled beauty" will 
come if you attend to the fundamentals and abstain 
from rhapsody. Anything like a personal or distinctive style 
cannot be acquired until you have trained yourself to control 
the gift of expression. 

This advice on 'style' may seem premature; it may be hke 
some other "road-maps to Parnassus that are useful only 
after you have got half-way up"; but I repeat: be natural; 
be yourself; shun artifice; avoid affectation; say frankly what 
you know or what you have observed; use only words the 
meaning of which you know ; avoid purple patches and rhetori- 
cal confectionery. Group the composition about the central 
idea. Be satisfied with short sentences until you have gained 
the experience that enables you to swing the longer ones dex- 
terously. As you gain experience, vary the length of your 
sentences; the crisp sentence is a relief; the long and resonant 
period is delightful. Make the thought consecutive and place 
the sentences in such order that the succession of ideas leads 
naturally to a definite conclusion. 

Not all engineers are graduates of a university, and many 
of those who have been so fortunate as to receive a liberal 
education are not well trained in the use of their own language; 
they have not had such a training as is founded upon a 
knowledge of the languages of antiquity, supplemented by care- 



STYLE 171 

fill reading of the English classics. To appreciate good writing 
keenly is a stimulus to developing one's own style. Such 
preparation is valuable, but it is not essential to the ordinary 
technical writer, provided he makes the most of his schooling 
and tries sincerely to avail himself of the means of expression 
at his command. University education rarely succeeds in pro- 
ducing men that write succinctly; intelligence and care — 
which is the supreme mark of intelligence — can accomplish 
great things. 

Two examples will illustrate my argument. Several years 
ago I had to edit a long and detailed description of a metal- 
lurgical device and the operation of it. The article was emi- 
nently practical and businessUke. The subject did not permit 
any literary pose, yet the article evidently was the work of a 
capable craftsman. I found that it needed scarcely any 
editing, and when it was published I referred gratefully to 
the excellence of the writing. Happening to discuss the 
incident with a friend, I was asked by him to guess for what 
occupation the writer had been trained, and I said: ''The 
ministry." This guess happened to be right, for the writer had 
been to Oxford and was intended for the Church before he 
wandered into a cyanide mill. The article bore the marks of 
the writer's training; a quiet command of English and a 
masterful use of it, making a difficult bit of technical exposition 
as clear and interesting as the subject permitted; and since ''the 
home of lost causes " is not my alma mater, I may be permitted 
to acknowledge the value of Oxonian English in the literature 
of science. 

My other example differs less than may appear at first 
sight. I have in mind an article describing mining conditions 
in a Central American republic. Such descriptions are usually 
made as verbally florid as the vegetation of the tropics and 
as involved as the jungle itself; at best, it is customary to 
bespatter them with unnecessary Spanish words and to deal 
in gorgeous generalities befitting the unlimited mineral resources 
of an inaccessible region. From these common faults this 



172 TECHNICAL WRITING 

article was free. The sentences were short and to the point. 
The statements conveyed information without exaggeration. 
ThiB writer kept what he knew at first hand separate from 
what he had merely been told; he gave just the information for 
which the average intelligent reader would ask, and a touch 
of humor was not lacking in his references to the queer things 
that happen on a Central American frontier. It was like the 
sensible talk of an intelligent traveler who has kept his eyes 
open and his notebook handy. The writer had not received 
a special training in the language of his own country nor in that 
of another; as a graduate from a technical college in Michigan 
he had acquired rather more of contempt than of love for the 
use of proper words in proper places, and yet, by dint of native 
intelligence and the desire to do his task well — the true pro- 
fessional spirit — he had succeeded in preparing an article that 
in its way was as good as that of the Oxford man. Both men 
were unaffected, both kept in mind the purpose of their writing, 
and both knew what they w^ere talking about. The moral is 
that bad writing is due to insincerity, carelessness, or ignorance. 
In the matter of the relative pronouns, as in that of prepo- 
sition-verbs and hyphens — indeed, in almost everything con- 
cerning which I have endeavored to instruct you — you will 
find example — even authority — to the contrary. Writing is a 
flexible instrument of expression, and the same thing can be 
said in many ways. The great art is to write the thing in the 
way that makes it most easily understood by the reader — 
the particular reader or the class of readers for whom it is 
intended. In order to learn, we must, of course, look backward 
for precedents and for critical judgments, but we should also 
occasionally turn and look forward, and in that forward look- 
ing we should keep our eyes on the purpose of our work. 
Whether one great writer fail to distinguish between the 
relative pronouns or another use preposition-verbs like a Ger- 
man, does not matter greatly unless it hinder us in writing 
clearly on technical subjects. Amid the distortions of English 
and the uncertainties of rhetorical doctrine we shall not cry 



STYLE 173 

despairingly "Whither are we drifting?" Rather let us ask 
hopefully "Whither shall we steer?" The answer is prompt: 
"Out of the fog, into the sunshine of clear plain English." 

Technical writing rarely conforms to the higher requirements 
of literature, largely because it is difficult to persuade techni- 
cians to conform to the lower requirements of plain scientific 
statement. George M. Wood, the editor of the U. S. Geological 
Survey's publications, confesses that "the purist or stylist 
would not be satisfied with the work done. The split infinitive 
may remain, unless it is very awkwardly split ; the doubtful sin- 
gular or plural may go unchallenged — whether three feet of 
sandstone are seen or is seen makes no difference to the editor 
so long as the verb is everywhere seen in the same number in 
the same paper; the restrictive 'which' that might be 'that' 
may go to print unless it conveys or suggests a wrong idea; 
'whose' may be used for either persons or things without 
editorial protest, if not with commendation. Whether some- 
thing 'had better' or 'would better' be done; whether work 
was 'commenced' or 'begun'; whether the indicative should 
be used where a writer of the old school would prefer the sub- 
junctive are questions that consume none of the time of the 
editors. Great latitude of expression and of style must be 
allowed, and the individuahty of the author must be preserved — 
unless his individuality should consist principally in the repeti- 
tion of faults of the kinds here described." 

In the course of these lectures, I have quoted many examples 
of bad writing. You will have noticed that most of the faults 
criticised are due to carelessness rather than ignorance. 
Thoughtlessness is fatal in matters that demand thought. 
Slovenly writing is the result of slovenly thinking, for " slovenly 
habits of expression corrode the very substance of thought." * 
It behooves us to remember that language in relation to ideas 
is a solvent, the purity and clearness of which affect the matter 
in solution. Whewell, in the 'Philosophy of the Inductive 
Sciences', has expressed this view with noble eloquence. 

* Allbutt. 



174 TECHNICAL WRITING 

''Language", he said, ''is often called an instrument of thought, 
but it is also the nutriment of thought; or rather it is the 
atmosphere in which thought lives; a medium essential to the 
activity of our speculative powers, although invisible and im- 
perceptible in its operation, and an element modifying, by its 
qualities and changes, the growth and complexion of the 
faculties which it feeds." 

In considering this phase of the subject there comes to 
mind a suggestion that takes us far beyond the confines of the 
matter under discussion. Man's power of speech appears to 
divide him from all other living things; at the same time the 
imperfection of it weighs him down continually with the sense 
of an essential frailty. To be able to express oneself perfectly 
v^ould be divine; to be unable to make oneself completely 
understood is human. In 'Man's Place in Nature' Huxle}^ 
points out that the endowment of intelligible speech separates 
man from the brutes most nearly resembling him, the anthropoid 
apes, to whom he is otherwise akin in substance and in struc- 
ture. This endowment of speech and the art of recording him- 
self in writing enable man to transmit the experience that in 
other animals is lost with the individual life; they have enabled 
him to organize his knowledge and to hand it down to his de- 
scendants, first by word of mouth and then by written words. 
If the experience thus recorded w^ere properly used, man's 
advancement in knowledge and in conduct would allow him to 
emphasize, much more than at present, his superiority over the 
dumb animals. Considered thus, language is a factor in the 
evolution of the race and an instrument that works for ethical 
progress — it is a gift to be cherished as the ladder by which man 
has climbed from his bestial origin and by which he may 
ascend to a loftier destiny, in which, ceasing to stammer in 
accents that are but the halting expression of swift thought, 
he shall unfold his mind in the fullness of speech, and, neither 
withholding what he wants to say nor saying what he wants to 
withhold, shall be Unked to his fellows by a perfect communion 
of ideas. 



INDEX 



Abbott, Edwin A., 71 
Abbreviations, 52 
Abridgements, 118, 119 
Abstracts v. concrete, 31, 33, 35, 

128, 140, 144, 152 
Adjectival clause, 116 
Adjectives 

compounded, 112 

inversion of, 157 
'Advent', 14, 127 
Adverbs, 161 
Affectation, 11 
Allbutt, Sir Clifford, 8, 10, 33, 

129, 159 
'Alongside ',93 
Americanisms, 129 

And', 154 

Anglo-Saxon words, 7 
Aristotle, 13 
Arrangement, 165 
Article, indefinite, 86 

Barrie, Sir James, 1, 168 
Britishisms, 63, 129 

Carelessness, 128 
'Case', 144 
'Certain', 49 
'Certainly', 49 
Christy, S. B., 2 
'Chute', 132 



55. 



Clause 

adjectival, 116 

antecedent, 76 
37, j definitive, 67, 70, 84 

non-defining, 70 

relative, 70 

restrictive, 69, 73, 75, 81 

subordinate, 68 

superfluous, 142, 161 
Clearness, 19, 46, 57, 79, 97, 109, 111, 

127, 160 
Commas, 70, 72, 161 
Composition, 12, 163, 170 
Compound words, 109, 114 
'Concentrates', 38 
Concord, 44 
Condensation, 114 
Confusion of thought, 23 
Connection, logical, 156 
Connectives, 85 
'Considerable', 50 
'Contemplate', 14, 148 

'Data', 5 
Definitions, 28 
* Differentiate,' 128 
Difficulty of writing, 5 
Directness of statement, 160 
'Discount', 128 
Double negative, 24 
Doubtful meaning, 77 
175 



176 



INDEX 



'Doubtless', 48 
'Due', 121 

Economy of effort, 10 

Elaboration, 17 

Elegance, 63 

'Eliminate', 148 

Emphasis, 48, 105, 124, 157, 162 

'Encounter', 141 

Euphony, 80 

Exactness, 36 

Expression, 168 

precise, 9 
Extravagance, 141 

Figures of speech, 138 
Fine writing, 14, 168 
Fluency, 19 
Foote, Arthur DeW., 2 

Gayley, Charles M., 76 
Good style, 29 
Good writing, 20 
'Great', 48 

Hill, A. S., 2, 67, 78, 97, 157, 164 

Hodgson, 71 

Huxley, Thomas H., 8, 17, 83, 105, 

174 
Hyphens, 107, 113, 136 

Idioms, 44, 48, 94, 99, 104, 105 
Incoherence, 150 
Infinitive, 88, 118 

split, 158 
'Inside', 93 

Introductory phrases, 123, 124 
Inversions, 161 
'It', 56 

James, Henry, 4, 53, 166 
Jargon, 59, 134, 148 
Johnson, Samuel, 16, 28 
Jonson, Ben, 13, 167 



Kelley, James P., 79, 90, 151, 153 

'Late', 24 

Latin inflections, 149 
Latin words, 6, 82, 95 
'Latter', 55 
'Locate', 131 

Macaulay, Thomas B., 21, 55, 164 
Meredith, George, 16 
'Met with', 104 
Meticulous precision, 30 
'Muck', 136 

Natural writing, 12, 13 
Naturalness, 11 
'Nature', 144 
Newspapers, usage of, 123 
Nicety of phrasing, 3 
Notes, use of, 166 
Nouns 

adjectival, 118 

collective, 45 

Obscurity, 127 
'Occur', 123 
'One', 61, 63 
'Only', 23 
'Outside', 93 

Paragraph, 165 

'Partial', 24 

Participial phrases, 120 

Participles, 119 

Pencil, use of, 166 

'Percentage', 31 

'Phenomenon', 21 

Plural, unnecessary, 26, 38, 40, 42, 89 

Precise expression, 9 

Precision, 29, 63, 75, 79, 86 

Preposition- verbs, 94 

Prepositions, 94 

function of, 92 

misplaced, 104 



INDEX 



177 



'Probably', 51 
'Problem', 147 
Pronouns 

indefinite, 60 

relative, 64, 71, 78, 86, 172 

relative, omission of, 89 

relative, substitute for, 86, 88 
'Prosecute', 16, 139 
Provincialism, 128, 129 
Punctuation, 65, 70, 72, 161 
Purpose of writing, 4 

Qualifying phrases, 51, 53 
Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, 7, 37, 134, 

141 
Quotations, use of, 11 

'Rather', 47, 51 
Raymond, R. W., 12 
Redundancy, 27, 125, 143 
Relative 

clause, 70 

pronouns, 64, 71, 78, 86, 172 

pronouns, omission of, 39 

pronouns, substitute for, 86, 88 
Repetition of word, 57 
Revision, 12 

Re-writing, 77, 78, 88, 90 
Rules, 113 

Rules for writing, 76, 90 
Ruskin, John, 15, 21, 30, 80 

'Section', 132 
Self-restraint, 130 
Sentences, 164 

arrangement of, 88 

beginning of, 122 

construction of, 149 

co-ordinate, 71 

doubtful, 76 
Sincerity, 30 
'Situation', 146 
Slang, 162 
'Slimes', 38 



Slovenliness, 35, 118, 139 
'Some', 50 
'Sometimes', 26 
'Somewhat', 47 
Specific phrase, 50 
Spencer, Herbert, 9, 10, 36 
Split infinitive, 158 
Stevenson, R. L., 7 
Style, 8, 29, 31, 39 

good, 68 

natural, 11, 12 
Superlatives, 46 
Suspensions, 159 
Synonyms, 131 

'Tank', 130, 131 

Taste in writing, 126 

'Tend', 121 

Terms, definition of, 28 

Terseness, 3 

'That', 69, 73, 77 

'That' and 'which', 64, 80, 83, 155 

'They', 62 

Transposition, 102 

'Tunnel', 133 

Uncouthness, 14 
Unemphatic words, 121 
'Unique', 47 
Usage, 

homely, 106 

of newspapers, 128 

Vagueness, 41, 49 
'Value', 31, 33 
Vsrbosity, 20 
Verbs, 158 

after plural, 44 
'Very', 26, 46, 48 
Vocabulary, 20, 163 
Vulgarisms, 42, 130 

Wells, H. G., 20 
'Which', 67 
'While', 60, 122 



178 



INDEX 



'Who', 75 

Wilson, Woodrow, 12 

'With', 58, 60 

Wood, George M., 27, 120, 144, 173 

Woolley, E. C, 106 

Words, 

compound, 109, 114 

foreign, 60 

of similar sound, 22 

repetition of, 57 

significant, 123, 127 

superfluous, 143 

unfamiliar, 17 



'Write-ups', 137 
Writing 

bad, 137, 173 

diflSculty of, 5 

ease of, 79 

fine, 14, 168 

first principle of, 10 

good, 20 

keynote of, 11 

natural, 12, 13 

persuasive, 13 

purpose of, 4 

taste in, 126 




W^iley Special Subject Catalogues 

For convenience a list of the Wiley Special Subject 
Catalogues, envelope size, has been printed. These 
are arranged in groups — each catalogue having a key 
symbol. (See special Subject List Below). To 
obtain any of these catalogues, send a postal using 
the key symbols of the Catalogues desired. 



1 — ^Agriculture. Animal Husbandry. Dairying. Industrial 
Canning and Preserving. 

2 — Architecture. Building. Masonry. 

3 — Business Administration and Management. Law. 

Industrial Processes: Canning and Preserving; Oil and Gas 
Production; Paint; Printing; Sugar Manufacture; Textile. 

CHEMISTRY 
4a General; Analytical, Qualitative and Quantitative; Inorganic; 

Organic. 
4b Electro- and Physical; Food and Water; Industrial; Medical 

and Pharmaceutical; Sugar. 

CIVIL ENGINEERING 

5a Unclassified and Structural Engineering. 

5b Materials and Mechanics of Construction, including; Cement 
and Concrete; Excavation and Earthwork; Foundations; 
Masonry. 

5c Railroads; Surveying. 

5d Dams; Hydraulic Engineering; Pumping and Hydraulics; Irri- 
gation Engineering; River and Harbor Engineering; Water 

Supply. 

(Over) 



CIVIL BNGINKKRING— Continued 
5e Highways; Municipal Engineering; Sanitary Engineering; 
Water Supply. Forestry. Horticulture, Botany and 
Landscape Gardening. 



6 — Design. Decoration. Drawing: General; Descriptive 
Geometry; Kinematics; Mechanical. 

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING— PHYSICS 

7 — General and Unclassified; Batteries; Central Station Practice; 
Distribution and Transmission; Dynamo-Electro Machinery; 
Electro-Chemistry and Metallurgy; Measuring Instruments 
and Miscellaneous Apparatus. 



8 — Astronomy. Meteorology. Explosives. Marine and 
Naval Engineering. Military. Miscellaneous Books. 

MATHEMATICS 
9 — General; Algebra; Analytic and Plane Geometry; Calculus; 
Trigonometry; Vector Analysis. 

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 
10a General and Unclassified; Foundry Practice; Shop Practice. 
10b Gas Power and Internal Combustion Engines; Heating and 

Ventilation; Refrigeration. 
10c Machine Design and Mechanism; Power Transmission; Steam 

Power and Power Plants; Thermodynamics and Heat Power. 
11 — Mechanics. 

12 — Medicine. Pharmacy. Medical and Pharmaceutical Chem- 
istry. Sanitary Science and Engineering. Bacteriology and 
Biology. 

MINING ENGINEERING 

13 — General; Assaying; Excavation, Earthwork, Tunneling, Etc.; 
Explosives; Geology; Metallurgy; Mineralogy; Prospecting; 
Ventilation. 












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